[HN Gopher] United Airlines will buy 15 planes from Boom Supersonic ___________________________________________________________________ United Airlines will buy 15 planes from Boom Supersonic Author : throw0101a Score : 544 points Date : 2021-06-03 13:12 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com) | rsynnott wrote: | Reminder that Concorde, and the largely imaginary Boeing SST, had | hundreds of orders. Orders do not, in themselves, guarantee a | product. | PaulWaldman wrote: | What are the commercials terms for deals like this? | | I'd image United pays some portion upfront in exchange for a | discount and being amung the first to have the plane. Boom gets | some cash flow without dilution and validation from an airline. | | If United is paying a portion upfront, is there risk factored in | if Boom can't deliver? | nradov wrote: | Yes the terms are usually like that. The upfront payment is | probably fairly small and not material to United. If Boom fails | to deliver then United will become one more unsecured creditor | in the bankruptcy case. | notatoad wrote: | I don't know any specifics, but I'd guess that united's up- | front payment is near $0, and the main benefit for boom is not | the immediate cash flow but the ability to take united's order | to a bank and use it to secure a loan. | refurb wrote: | Agreed. These types of agreements, this early, tend to be | Letters of Intent that aren't legally binding OR a contract | stating that "if Boom produces planes to agreed upon spec by | 2029, United will purchase 15..." plus a bunch of out | clauses. | cududa wrote: | United could've also invested in the co as part of the deal. | notahacker wrote: | They won't even be able to take it to a bank, but it'll | enhance their credibility with VCs. United get a bit of PR, | and if Boom does work out they're at the front of the queue | and have probably influenced the design a bit by the time it | comes to deciding whether to actually pay. | Waterluvian wrote: | Might be an obvious question, but is there an engineering reason | behind why they have the Avro Arrow / Concorde delta wing? Is | that just a thing that makes physics sense for supersonic flight? | quux wrote: | I think it's physics, yes. If you want to keep the leading edge | of the wing behind the supersonic shock cone you need to have a | highly swept design and a Concorde style delta wing is a good | choice for lots of aerodynamic and engineering reasons. | Gelob wrote: | Theirs no way united is sending them money for these yet. 2029 | passenger flight LOL. We'll see if united or boom are even in | business then. | fblp wrote: | I think it's worth noting that united received $5 billion dollars | in federal aid last year. I wonder if they'll pay any of it back | or if the surplus this year is going into purchases like this? | inpdx wrote: | Shouldn't new plane development be shifting to ghg neutral | solutions? This seems like it's moving in the wrong direction. | alberth wrote: | I've always been surprised that no major airline has vertically | integrated into owning their own plane manufacturer (e.g. United | to acquire Boom as a company). | | Is there a regulatory reason preventing this? | pjerem wrote: | Isn't that because airline is a low margin business ? You'd | need a ton of cash to own your plane manufacturer. | | You may have hard time to sell planes to concurrent companies | so you cannot scale like Boeing or Airbus. | | You would be tied to this manufacturer for life and if you | start to manufacture defective planes, you are on the highway | to bankrupt and selling your plane manufacturer wouldn't even | save you because nobody wants a defective airplane | manufacturer. | | Sounds like a lot of risks. | | But those are just my thoughts, i'm far from being an expert. | bfstein wrote: | Yes - United used to be owned by Boeing. The Air Mail Act | banned common ownership of manufacturers & airlines. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_Airlines | [deleted] | mmaunder wrote: | Great to see so much innovation in aerospace. Boom has said | they're going to reduce noise, but they've also said they'll only | fly supersonic over water with buffers between supersonic zones | and populated areas. So the 'boom', as it were, is still a | concern. | | I'm super interested to see how quiet their planes are at | subsonic. If you ever saw the Concorde flying subsonic, it was | unbelievably loud. Nothing to do with being supersonic - their | engines were just obnoxiously loud. Came into Cape Town a long | time ago and made the whole town rumble on final. | | In this blog post: https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms- | principles-of-sustaina... | | ..Boom says: "Today's subsonic commercial aircraft are 80% more | fuel efficient than those of the 1960s, and noise footprints have | shrunk up to 90% in the last 50 years. This technological | progress has fueled Boom's efforts to design a supersonic | airliner that makes economic sense for airlines and their | customers. " | | However, the innovation that enabled this is high bypass turbofan | engines. Turns out if you move more air slower, it's way quieter | and more fuel efficient because physics. Boom can't take | advantage of this - at least directly, because they have to go | supersonic. A high bypass turbofan engine is huge, by it's very | nature. At supersonic speeds this presents a lot of drag. That's | why I'm super curious how they plan to be quiet and fuel | efficient while also being supersonic. | Multicomp wrote: | NASA is working with Lockheed on the X-59 QueSST to tackle the | noise concerns. Construction is ongoing but over half complete | according to wp . first flight planned for 2022. 2025 or so is | when the icao expects to establish a new sonic boom standard. | If things go well it could be much less of a blunt instrument | than 'no overland flights ever' like what was required for the | birds in the days of Concorde and Boeing's SST competitor, the | 2707 or Lockheed L-2000 | carabiner wrote: | It's not just a high bypass ratio that has helped. It's | computational acoustics (we can predict the sound something | makes based on its geometry and movement in a medium), nacelle | design, materials. In supersonic flight, the most pressing | issue is suppressing the sonic boom. There was a lot of work on | this in the late 00's, with even Cessna rumored to be working | on a quiet supersonic business jet. Various attempts - a | bulging, ogival nose will increase the local density raising | the local mach number leading to a weaker shock, and other | thing. It was a lot of fine tuning and deep insight into | transonic phenomena. | wiz21c wrote: | I can assure you that the planes the take off from the | airport located 7 km, plain line of sight makes measurable | noise, with infra basses I guess. Not unbearable but clearly | a nuisance. So maybe there's progress, but it'd be better | with just less planes... | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | Why is there suddenly a lot more drag once you break the sound | barrier? | | I would imagine drag increases linearly or exponentially with | speed - not as a step function once you cross the sound | barrier. | | Or are you saying because it's going to be flying twice as | fast? | genericone wrote: | I understand this is probably an honest question, so I'll | just point to this wiki article: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag- | divergence_Mach_number#:~.... | | [Increasing Mach Number] can cause the drag coefficient to | rise to more than ten times its low-speed value. | | I only know this because of a number of fluid-dynamics | courses that are only required for Mechanical and | Aeronautical engineering majors. Barely anyone else is | expected to know this information. Mach numbers represent | fluid-flow discontinuities. If there is fluid flow in a | varying inner-diameter tube and there is a Mach number change | from <1 -> >1 at any point in the tube, as long as the Mach | discontinuity is there, fluid flow characteristics before and | after the discontinuity are decoupled from each other, they | no longer influence each other if the Mach discontinuity is | present. | carabiner wrote: | It actually IS a step function. A shock wave by definition is | an instantaneous change in fluid properties. At the molecular | level, the change in properties is observed as occurring | within a mean free path length (average distance a gas | molecule travels before colliding). Imaging that shows the | jump: https://phys.org/news/2015-08-schlieren-images-reveal- | supers... | themeiguoren wrote: | Worth noting that human sound perception is logarithmic, not | linear. A 90% reduction in sound is -20dB, which is | significant. But in human perception terms, that's only about a | fifth of the range of the typical soundscape which ranges from | the 20dB of a quiet room to the 120dB of an ambulance siren. | voldacar wrote: | 10db actually. 20db would be a linear scaling of 100x. | thrdbndndn wrote: | It depends on the the physical property you're' measuring. | | For power ratio, 10dB is 10x; for amplitude ratio, 20dB is | 10x. | | Loudness is typically measured by "sound pressure level" | (dB SPL), which uses the latter (amplitude ratio). | | Also, it's worth pointing out that while sound perception | (like almost _all_ the perceptions people have, Stevens 's | power law [1]) is logarithmic, its exponent isn't exactly | 10 or 100. [2] claims that every 20dB (10x) in SPL, the | perceived loudness is 4x. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens%27s_power_law [2] | http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm | aeternum wrote: | How about some powerful noise cancelling speakers around the | turbofan? | coopsmoss wrote: | Turbofan noise is nothing compared to sonic boom noise. | ehnto wrote: | I wonder what the result would be of using pulsejets offset | in timing by 50% of eachother. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Lots of weird mechanical resonance, and not noise | cancellation. | BurningFrog wrote: | I think noise cancelling is only practical at the listening | location. | parhamn wrote: | Wendover Productions has a great video on the latest generation | of supersonic airplanes and their comparative advantage over | prior attempts like the concorde. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg | aetherson wrote: | So I was interested in how well Boom was doing in keeping to its | timeline, and found an article from two years ago: | | https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/supersonic-passenger... | | Some side-by-side comparisons: | | 2019 article: "Boom envisions its Overture airliner traveling at | Mach 2.2." 2021 article: "a plane that could fly at Mach 1.7" | | 2019 article: "Its planes could be ready for commercial service | in the mid-2020s". 2021 article: "It is targeting the start of | passenger service in 2029." | | The 2019 article also says that Boom is constructing a 1/3rd | scale version of Overture that could be making test flights later | in 2019. This article from October 2020 says that the 1/3rd scale | vehicle was "rolled out" in 2020 and could be ready for test | flights in Q3 2021. | https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2020/10/26/boom-supe... | sandworm101 wrote: | Delays happen. That is normal. I am more worried about the slip | in speeds. "Traveling at Mach 2.2" becomes "could fly at Mach | 1.7". That is a radical loss of performance. It is more than | just 0.5. It is a switch from traveling at a speed to "could | fly", a theoretical top speed for the same aircraft. I think | they are facing solid engineering challenges and are having to | reduce expectations. | | FYI, most airliners already fly at or above 0.85 Mach. 1.7 is | faster than 0.85 but operationally it will only be only an | incremental decrease in total travel time. | V_Terranova_Jr wrote: | The sweet spot for civil supersonics from an aircraft design | standpoint is less than Mach 2. You can maintain good | propulsion system performance without variable geometry | inlets, boom strengths are lower, aeroheating loads are | lower, fuel burn is lower, etc. Operating expenses will be | significantly lower for such an aircraft. Maybe Boom is | finally realizing the importance of all this as well. | | Whether that's enough travel time reduction to make these | aircraft worthwhile is definitely a valid question. The low- | boom technology that NASA is pursuing is for sub-Mach 2 | aircraft (I don't believe Boom is pursuing a low-boom design, | but I haven't followed closely as I don't consider them a | credible organization either). | dannyw wrote: | A halving in speed sound amazing! | SamBam wrote: | Even if we say doubling instead of halving, I assume that | the total portion of a transatlantic flight that it could | travel at top speed would be pretty small, so the total | time might still be more than half. | nopzor wrote: | other than lower speeds during approach and departure | around controlled airspace with speed restrictions, the | overwhelming majority of a transatlantic flight will be | at full speed. | | of course, there are exceptions with congestion, hold | patterns, excessive vectoring, etc, but this is generally | true. | | another thing to keep in mind is headwinds/jetstream. | when going west across the atlantic; they can often be | 100+mph. so the delta between boom and eg. a 787 becomes | even more pronounced in this situation. | ginko wrote: | It's not like the 787 can't also make use of the | jetstream. | twic wrote: | A _halving_ in _speed_ would be surprising, at least. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > 2019 article: "Its planes could be ready for commercial | service in the mid-2020s" | | This one is the most egregious. It's hard to imagine a good- | faith scenario where the company actually thought they would | ship a commercial airplane in a couple years when they didn't | even have their scale model working. | sjwalter wrote: | Mid 2020s, not mid-2020. That is, 2025ish, not 2020.5ish. | rootusrootus wrote: | Even then. It took Boeing, a company with vast amounts of | experience developing airplanes, close to ten years to | create the 787. And that is a bog standard subsonic | airliner design with the most notable feature being the | composite construction. | | Boom seems like vaporware. | sheepybloke wrote: | To be fair, the 787 isn't bog standard. It's built from | composites, which change a lot of dynamics in the plane. | Similarly, there were a lot of avionics updates from the | previous generations. It looks standard, but there were a | lot of improvements to the plane that required a lot of | work. | iab wrote: | I take your point here, but bristle a little bit on the | "bog-standard", given the truly amazing engineering that | goes into modern airliners | rootusrootus wrote: | I agree, airliners are marvels of modern engineering. I | am grateful that we can be flippant and call them bog- | standard because we have (collectively) become so good at | making them. | [deleted] | ceejayoz wrote: | > It took Boeing, a company with vast amounts of | experience developing airplanes, close to ten years to | create the 787. | | This is a bit like saying SpaceX's Starship isn't | possible because Boeing's SLS is costly and delayed. "If | Boeing can't do it, it must be tough" is no longer the | same statement it would've been in the 1960s. | rootusrootus wrote: | Airbus, if you would like an alternative comparison, | kicked off development of the A350 in 2005 and the maiden | flight was in 2013, eight years later. | | Boom hasn't even finished the scale prototype they've | been promising for a while, much less started development | on an actual full size plane. If they ever fly the plane, | it will be more than a decade from now. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | Boeing has a special sort of ineptitude when it comes to | execution. Other companies don't suffer the same | problems. | rootusrootus wrote: | Alright, let's use Airbus as an example, then. The A350 | (seems to be their most recent airliner) had its maiden | flight in 2013, after being in development for 8 years, | since 2005. | dingaling wrote: | The A350XWB was launched in December 2006 | hedora wrote: | It took Boeing 3 years to design and start mass | production of the 747 (1965-1968): | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747 | | The 747 is a descendant of the 707, which took 3 years. | | It's based on the 367-80 prototype which took less than 2 | years (they only built one 367-80). | | The 787 isn't really representative of a reasonable | timeframe for an experienced company to design + build an | airliner. | notahacker wrote: | We don't live in the 1960s and tolerate 1960s accident | rates any more. The 787 is much more representative of a | reasonable timeframe for an experienced company to design | and build a new airliner than anything that happened in | the 1960s when there were minimal regulations and no | competition. | nopzor wrote: | the difference is not just the regulations and risk | tolerance. | | it's also a regression in skills, culture, | accountability, and urgency. | ebruchez wrote: | > mid-2020s > in a couple years | | This means around 2025. | GekkePrutser wrote: | Well, in 2019 the pandemic hadn't given a big blow to the | aviation industry so that slower start could be blamed on that. | Not a good time asking for investment into a high-risk | expensive niche product meant for a market that's in deep | crisis. | | Not the speed thing though :) But the faster you go the more | energy it costs for the same distance so that would make sense. | DevKoala wrote: | I also had tons of plans for 2020 but then a global pandemic | happened. | thesausageking wrote: | The market rewards bold predictions. In 2016, Elon Musk said | customers would be able from LA to NYC with no human | intervention by the end of 2017. He's now the richest person on | Earth. | samstave wrote: | Additionally - what is the project timeline impact for any | major endeavor such as this with respect to supply and labor | chain interruptions due to pandemic, Suez-tipation, other | economic factors... | | I recall reading that major construction, mfrg project | timelines were automatically setback by a large number of | months due to the Evergreen thing... (JIT construction required | a precise delivery of components and even a few week hiccup in | that caused a downstream of ++months) | | OBV Boom isnt affected by such - but the labor version locally | in the US (Colorado) could still have slowed... | | The other non-tangible impact of something like this is the | loss of intellectual momentum that a team may have had | aggressively going after a timeline when suddenly all the eng | team gets to go spend more time with family... | | Just some factors to be considered. | TheMagicHorsey wrote: | This is amazing progress for a company that needs to get type | certified by the FAA before it can fly anything. | | The FAA requirements are soooooo painful, and often illogical | and sometimes even mutually contradictory. | nradov wrote: | Which specific FAA requirements are illogical or mutually | contradictory? | jcims wrote: | It's probably a function of human nature to be conservative | there. | | It seems that the FAA is trying to optimize for the fewest | unknown unknowns, and until the 737 MAX it would be hard to | argue that entirely new airframes, propulsion and control | systems operating in flight regimes that have only been done | one other time (intentionally anyway) in commercial aviation | would achieve that objective better than incremental changes. | | The associated bureaucracy bloat can be a feature because | it's harder to sustain a ruse over time. | | That said, it really does impede development of arguably | safer systems. | grkvlt wrote: | > flight regimes that have only been done one other time | (intentionally anyway) in commercial aviation | | TIL the Tu-144 was designed, built and then operated | commercially entirely by accident... | kspacewalk2 wrote: | Well, in this way at least, they are quite like Elon Musk's | startups. | barnabee wrote: | It makes sense to always communicate the best case, not the | most likely expected case. If you allow worse-than-best-case to | become the plan/expectation, you'll fill the time and often | exceed it. | | As an engineer, this feels strange, because you might expect to | be trying to be as close to correct as possible when you give a | date. But that's not the goal. The goal is to create a | narrative and sense of purpose that gets you there as quickly | as possible. | | Finishing something 6 months behind schedule in 18 months is | still better than doing it "only" 1 month behind schedule in 19 | months. Of course, you also need a risk analysis of the worst | case, and to understand the financials and be able to survive a | reasonable range of potential delays. | Judgmentality wrote: | Gotta say you're completely ignoring the negative toll this | takes on morale. I _hate_ unrealistic timelines, and I 've | been on almost every side of the table (engineer, engineering | manager, product manager, program manager, even CEO for a | tiny startup). Internally, only the most junior engineers | tend to believe the timelines for these ambitious R&D | projects. And it leads to senior engineers just getting tired | of endless politicking around hype instead of actually | focusing on building the thing and being honest about when it | will be ready. To be a little less professional - the | timelines are usually fucking bullshit. | | I've quit before because of this very reason. You're allowed | to disagree with me obviously, but I don't want to work with | you if you honestly believe this is a good policy. | hedora wrote: | There's also the effect where engineer A says "two years" | and has a solid plan to hit that date, but engineer B says | "6 months" without actually having a plan. | | In my experience, engineer B usually gets to take charge of | the project, and inevitably takes 3-4 years before the | project ends, having failed to deliver anything that works. | | Bonus points if the project is then declared a success by | the pointy haired boss that bet on engineer B. | qayxc wrote: | That's to be expected - press releases focus on super- | optimistic specs and timelines. | | After reality kicks in and unforeseen issues arise (remember | 2020? me neither), plans need to be adjusted. | | The scale model was initially expected to fly in 2018 even [1]. | | I expect further delays to be realistic as well. They either | going to deliver sometime in the next decade or go | bankrupt/sold out within the next couple of years. | | [1] https://blog.wandr.me/2017/11/false-hope-boom-supersonic- | tra... | jandrese wrote: | To be fair most people were calling even that scale model | test timeline hopelessly optimistic. That they didn't deliver | on their impossible timetable is not a huge surprise. | | That said, a lot of people also expected them to fold by now | and were definitely not expecting a fairly major order from a | large airline. | hef19898 wrote: | Didn't a competitor just go bist despite having 29 jets in | the order book? | dylan604 wrote: | >(remember 2020? me neither) | | I'm firmly in the camp of when people ask how old we are, we | get to --actualAge (as long as you birthday is after lock | downs). It's like the old drinking adage, if you can't | remember it, it didn't happen. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > That's to be expected - press releases focus on super- | optimistic specs and timelines. | | No, this isn't normal at all. Some optimism is expected but | promising commercial operation a couple years out when they | weren't even close to anything like it is simply lying. | | We shouldn't be giving companies a pass for this stuff | theptip wrote: | 2020 was not normal for the travel industry. Would not be | surprising if they went into hibernation, and/or all of | their order book was paused while covid uncertainty | persisted. | rjzzleep wrote: | Boom supersonic isn't travel industry. It's silicon | valley engineering. | theptip wrote: | The title of TFA is "United Airlines will buy 15 planes | from Boom Supersonic". I would describe United Airlines | as in the travel industry. | ghaff wrote: | No it's actual real engineering. They're located in | Denver. | projectileboy wrote: | I agree that it is wrong to give companies a pass on this | behavior, but, with respect, this is in fact pretty normal | in the aviation industry. In fact, given the ambitions of | Boom, I'd argue they're doing quite a bit better than any | of us might have expected. | oivey wrote: | "Could be ready" falls pretty short of making a promise. | I'm not sure what giving them a pass really entails. If | they're late to market it costs them money. Are you going | to boycott using their product if it is good but late? | ekianjo wrote: | > No, this isn't normal at all. | | When you want to sell, you should be overly optimistic in | your presentation. | | When you have sold, you can now explain the real picture | and explain that actually... everything will take 3 times | longer than when you were trying to sell. | tohmasu wrote: | You have inadvertently highlighted how thin the line is | between (some) business and fraud. | dylan604 wrote: | How is it fraud if they actually deliver a product, but | late? Wouldn't fraud be never delivering a product after | taking money for it? Granted, the IF in the first | sentence is still looming over them. | | I hate super positve PR propaganda too, and a skeptical | eye should always be applied. Fraud is still used when | talking about Tesla, yet they clearly have developed | products. Yes deadlines were missed. I'm willing to give | Boom a bit of leeway. | jorams wrote: | Delivery time is a feature of the product you are | selling. | | Say I'm looking for a bike. Person A is selling one I | like and promises to deliver after two weeks. Person B is | selling one I like a bit less, but promises to deliver | after one week. I might now choose to buy from person B, | even if I like the bike a bit less. | | If I buy from person B and they deliver after three | weeks, there's a problem. Why did it take three times as | long? Did they ever intend to deliver after one week? | Should they have known they wouldn't be able deliver | after one week? They got the order based on a feature | they didn't deliver. If that was intentional, that's | fraud. | cglace wrote: | What do you propose "we" do? | qayxc wrote: | > No, this isn't normal at all. | | Hm. Significant delays and missed timelines aren't normal | you say? Let's see (aerospace only): | | * all SpaceX projects so far (USA) | | * Virgin Galactic's space tourism plans (USA) | | * Boeing's 787 and 777X (USA) | | * HAL's Sukhoi-30-, Jaguar Darin III-, and Tejas LCA | projects and production (India) | | * BAE Systems Plc/TAI TF-X project (UK/Turkey) | | * EADS's MRH-90, Tiger, and A400M (EU) | | * Airbus A380 (EU) | | * Comac's C919 project (China) | | * ... | | TBH, it'd be easier to list projects that actually finished | on schedule and didn't face significant delays, such as the | Airbus A350XWB. | | And most of the companies listed aren't even money-starved | start-ups that required investor attention and media hype. | It's almost as if developing, testing, and certifying | cutting edge aerospace projects is kind of hard and just as | easy to predict and schedule as large software projects... | iab wrote: | Interesting comment about the XWB. The hype-driving is | obviously necessary - nothing is ever more than ~5 years | away, because that is the limit of VC/consumer patience. | rjzzleep wrote: | Worked out quite well for Theranos didn't it? | iab wrote: | The exemplar of the wrong mix of engineering and hubris | oivey wrote: | Theranos was magic tech that they managed to never have | to prove worked. We've been building supersonic jets for | a very long time. | ghaff wrote: | Yeah. There's zero question that a 50 passenger | supersonic commercial jet can be built. The questions are | things like timeline, cost, and specs. | simplicio wrote: | Theranos isn't really the same thing though, they didn't | pretend that they were on the verge of a breakthrough, | they said they had already had the breakthrough and the | tech was working and deployed. That's less "hype" and | more just straight up "fraud". | | Boom Supersonic is obviously overly optimistic in their | deadlines, but they at least aren't pretending that | they're meeting them when they aren't. | marcosdumay wrote: | Well, if you are so stupid that you basically require | people to lie to you, you will be lied to. | | It's amazing that there are so many people willing to lie | in order to make honestly good ideas viable, instead of | everybody just being like Theranos. | chx wrote: | Bombardier C-Series, anyone? | | It was authorized by the board in 2005, first flight was | planned for 2008, entry into service was planned in 2010. | First flight was 2013, it entered in service in 2018 | (January, but still). | aaronblohowiak wrote: | Also the SLS and the JSF... | throw0101a wrote: | > * Boeing's 787 and 777X (USA) | | Don't forget the KC-46 tanker. Even though they had a | working KC-767 to start from. | mshumi wrote: | Unfortunately, aerospace isn't an industry where you can | say "fuck it, ship it" | dylan604 wrote: | 737Max disagrees with that sentiment. | leoc wrote: | Talk about the exception that proves the rule, though! | dylan604 wrote: | 300+ deaths seems like a very tough lesson to learn to | prove the rule, though. Sorry, you comment struck me as | rather macabre. This isn't a software update that caused | people a temporary bit of inconvenience. | leoc wrote: | TBH I'm not sure what you think I was saying. | bobthepanda wrote: | Aviation has very high visibility of fatal crashes but a | low overall rate. The car fatality rate is much higher | but we treat it as routine because they are lower | severity events at much higher frequency. | chrisseaton wrote: | That was the point of the person you replied to. You're | in agreement. | lumost wrote: | The optimistic timeline may have been based on "if we get | the money and customers we expect, and they don't have any | special requirements". When the above isn't true you're | likely to see a slower rollout. The company is projecting | the optimistic form of their current plan to attract | investors/customers who will help make that timeline a | reality. | agumonkey wrote: | should we buy BOOM stock ? :) | the8472 wrote: | If they take too long they might have to compete with | suborbital rocket flights. | Opt_Out_Fed_IRS wrote: | Doesn't management and C-suite executives lose the respect of | technical people in the company when they do media | appearences and sign off this sort of overtly-optimistic PR | pieces? | landemva wrote: | United Airlines press release for woke jetsetters: carbon | neutral, carbon capture, soybean oil fuel. | shakezula wrote: | In my experience, it's usually the C suite who's pushing | these type of overly-optimistic PR pieces. | cratermoon wrote: | Which means they find some senior technical person to | actually be part of the announcement, to give it more | credibility. They're reading off a C-suite script, yes, | but they are putting their names to it. | shakezula wrote: | For sure, but it also means that they aren't getting to | add their own part to the script either, which is | probably a lengthy and detailed "yes, but..." | chubot wrote: | Yeah it's not surprising. I'm kinda disappointed since I'd be | excited about faster flights to Europe and Asia, and I would | pay for it | | Since they're telling me it's 2029, what I really hear is | 2030 or 2035, or never. So that means I'll probably be stuck | on the same slow flights for more than a decade :-( It | doesn't feel like this is a space where there is a lot of | competition. | burlesona wrote: | You're correct that there isn't a lot of competition. | njarboe wrote: | SpaceX's Starship could be. | [deleted] | edgyquant wrote: | Starship isn't going to compete with aerial flight nor is | it even trying to... | chromaton wrote: | SpaceX has said otherwise: | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/07/nyc-to-shanghai- | in-40-minute... | hef19898 wrote: | Will it compete in the air taxi market as well? | ksec wrote: | >That's to be expected - press releases focus on super- | optimistic specs and timelines. | | It is only in US and Silicon Valley that it is called _Super | Optimistic_. Many parts of the world look at the difference | in projected TimeLine from 2020 to 2029 ( A difference of | _9X_ ) and we call that BS or flat out lying. | andromeduck wrote: | mid-2020s should probably be read as more ~2025 +/- 1 | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _mid-2020s should probably be read as more ~2025 + /- | 1_ | | Estimating mid-2020s on a start-up's new platform and | landing it in 2028 is a massive win and far from B.S. | dfsegoat wrote: | Meanwhile, USAF just fully designed and tested a 6th | generation fighter [1] in record time [during 2020]: | | https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the- | us-... | | They say the key to the record time was an 'all virtual' | prototype design and test process. I found that pretty | fascinating. | | 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth-generation_fighter | ErikVandeWater wrote: | I'm very hesitant to take anything "DefenseNews" says at | face value. | | Obviously heavily pro-military just by the title, as if the | military is only used in a defensive manner. | nradov wrote: | Building a flying airframe is relatively easy now. The slow | expensive work tends to be in weight reduction, software | development, and systems integration. But hopefully the Air | Force has learned something from the problems in the B-2, | F-22, and F-35 programs. | InvisibleCities wrote: | Well that's good. How's the F-35 coming along? | knowaveragejoe wrote: | Apparently quite well if you look past the decade-old | takes on it. | lostlogin wrote: | That's the point that of the grandparent post - timelines | have slipped a lot. | thereddaikon wrote: | With modern combat aircraft the easy part is the working | airframe actually. The YF-22 first flew in 1989 and finally | entered service as the F-22 in 2005. F-35 had a similarly | long development time and while its technically been | operational for years, its software is like a modern EA | release. A lot of the good stuff missing and available as | later DLC. They are still patching in drivers for weapons | that legacy aircraft already support. | | While its definitely good that NGAD has produced a flying | prototype so quickly, it isn't proof that they have | achieved the goal of faster development. | | The primary hinderance has been and still is the software. | The defense industry has been slow to adopt modern coding | practices. Sometimes that's a good thing. But on the | balance its bad. F-35's software development has all of the | hallmarks of a project saddled with a great deal of | technical debt combined with outdated practices and | overburdened with compliance. | javajosh wrote: | The F-35 has in-app purchases? Nice. | NateEag wrote: | "It looks like you're gonna crash! Pick up a parachute | for just 200 coins and you won't have to start a new | pilot file." | KptMarchewa wrote: | You have 12 seconds until crash. Please enter credit card | information. | Someone wrote: | > With modern combat aircraft the easy part is the | working airframe actually. | | Is there such a thing as a " _working_ airframe" for | modern combat aircraft? Reading | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxed_stability, I have | the understanding that, for modern combat aircraft, you | can't consider the airframe to be separate from the | software. | aidenn0 wrote: | Flight control software is a tiny fraction of the | software on a combat aircraft. | | As a side note: Early relaxed stability planes had no | software. It was implemented with analog computers | jupp0r wrote: | What makes you think that Boom won't have a long time to | go fixing their software after they have a flying | prototype? | nradov wrote: | Boom production models will use COTS avionics just like | every other business jet manufacturer. They'll have to | write custom flight control software but that will be | much easier than on a military aircraft. No weapons, no | external stores, no defensive systems, no tactical data | link, no complex navigation modes, etc. | ineedasername wrote: | Except they'll need to write that flight control software | themselves, for a plane so different from modern aircraft | that there are literally no experts in software design | for this class of aircraft. (Outside of anyone doing it | for the military, and I can't imagine they'd be allowed | to repurpose that work.) There will need to be a whole | lot of new software development, along with the | corresponding review process by the FAA. Simpler than a | complex military fighter, but there's no COTS solution | for the software and that's a huge part of this project. | hadlock wrote: | Looking at the current state of open source software like | ardupilot, and the fact that we've had supersonic jet | fighters since the 1950s (F-100 Super Sabre) I don't | think the control software is going to be a major | bottleneck. If anything, not being tied to legacy control | software may improve their velocity and testing. | Navigation solutions should be drop in. Garmin, etc offer | drop-in glass cockpit retrofit solutions for Cesnas from | the 1960s. | akiselev wrote: | Stuff in civilian aviation is designed to be certified | before its flown commercially, stuff in military aviation | is designed to be adapted on an evolving battlefield. | hef19898 wrote: | Dassault did something similar like 10 years ago with one | of their business jets. In that case, it was also to | showcase the capabilities of Catia. | | Still amazes me, on the one hand you have the Air Forces | one-year project. On the other hand you have the German Air | Force that needs more than that just ginish the first draft | of the requirements document for an existing plane. | dylan604 wrote: | Don't rule out the design/development of other planes in | US arsenal. The F-35 is just in the news here this week | (yeserday maybe) about it being a meh plane because of | the bureaucratic process. The Air Force project seems to | be an outlier and definitely not the norm. | MaxDPS wrote: | That's true, though given this success, hopefully they | can name it the norm going forward. | justapassenger wrote: | I'd love that as well, but research projects are very | very very different from actual huge contracts. | Especially with how politically engineered supply chain | has to be in USA. And changing that isn't technical | challenge - it's political one, and no one will dare to | do it. | [deleted] | SkyMarshal wrote: | I agree. Not only did they digitally prototype the fighter, | but also its entire manufacturing process. That's something | new AFAIK. | dylan604 wrote: | Sounds like a step that Tesla skipped. In the VFX world | of movies, this is known as PreViz. I remember when the | 3D rendering first came to CAD. One of the projects my | dad was working on discovered that if they built it | exactly to the plan's specifications, there would have | been plumbing pipes running through other pipes. Lots of | value in these kinds of looking at things digitaly before | doing it physically | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Sure, but how many people USAF has and how many billions | did it cost? Compare that to Boom. Also, USAF does not have | to comply with civil aviation regulations. | nradov wrote: | Military aircraft don't have to go through the FAA | certification process but the actual requirements are | generally even more rigorous. So that doesn't save | anything. Most of the work is typically done by the | manufacturer's employees. | xkjkls wrote: | > That's to be expected - press releases focus on super- | optimistic specs and timelines. | | No, they don't. I don't know how much Elon Musk has tricked | people into thinking it is normal for companies to be | perpetually late, but it is definitely not normal. | fnord77 wrote: | Is their tech any better than what the concorde had 50 years ago? | dr_ wrote: | If this works out, we can probably envision a future for travel | where there are different price points for different travel | times. Traveling to the other side of the world? Cheapest ticket | is your traditional 18-22+ hr flight. Next is your 9+ hr flight. | Most expensive is the 1hr trip via a rocket ship. | umeshunni wrote: | Arguably we are already there - direct flights for $X, one- | stops via Dubai on Emirates for $X * 0.75, two-stops via Manila | and a city in China on China Southern for $X * 0.50. | mc32 wrote: | Wonder if the big plane MFGs will be interested in buying them | out or believe they have the talent to bring to market if the | market proves large enough. | lormayna wrote: | It's just a matter of cost for customer: how much a ticket for | supersonic flight is going to cost? If the price is comparable | with a "normal" business class, I will fly with that one: you | have lot of more space to relax and 3/4 hours more are not an | issue when you can sleep comfortably. | whatgoodisaroad wrote: | I think to start with, it's a matter of cost for the expense | account. | frakkingcylons wrote: | Supposedly around $5000 for a transatlantic flight, compared to | $20000 on the Concorde when adjusted for inflation. | | https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/dubai-boom-to... | bin_bash wrote: | They claim "$100" eventually which screams vaporware to me. | https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boom-supersonic-four-hour... | failwhaleshark wrote: | Yeah, that's insane. This must be a stock-market summer pump | hype-fest. | Anasigns wrote: | The world's first purchase agreement for net-zero carbon | supersonic aircraft marks a significant step toward our mission | to create a more accessible world. | NohatCoder wrote: | Am I the only one to suspect that this "order" is mostly a show | deal? United Airlines will do anything to seem progressive, and | Boom needs some credibility in order to raise more funding. | antipaul wrote: | How exactly is it net zero emissions? | shawn-butler wrote: | https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/q-a-with-booms-sustainabilit... | | A lot of fluff but I would guess a good place to start to learn | more | mekkkkkk wrote: | Amazing how the only piece of tangible information in that | post was how Boom promises to adhere to standards and | regulation when it comes to noise levels. | aero-glide2 wrote: | Fuel from carbon-capture or biofuels. Looks like something they | intend to do in the future, not necessarily the first | prototype. More details here : | https://blog.boomsupersonic.com/booms-principles-of-sustaina... | realreality wrote: | We've known for a long time that biofuels are an | unsustainable scam. | | https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703574604574500. | .. | hannob wrote: | Lots of marketing and gullible fanboys of course. | gumby wrote: | They claim the new Rolls Royce engines will run on biofuel. | | It's left as an exercise for the reader to figure out how to | make biofuels net zero. | isis777 wrote: | Use 1x fossil fuels to create 1.1x biofuels. Sell biofuels to | companies wanting to pander to their woke audience. look how | great we are!! | mekkkkkk wrote: | I suspect that the "net" qualifier is doing a lot of important | work in that statement. Maybe they are planting a gazillion | trees, do carbon capture or regrow coral reefs. Could mean | anything really. Plant enough trees and you'll theoretically | have "net zero emissions" from lighting a lake of crude on | fire. | afavour wrote: | Problems with supersonic (?): | | - Noise means you can't do US domestic | | - Concorde didn't have the range for Pacific | | - Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes | | - And airlines want lots of identical planes, not one special one | for one route | | Which ones has Boom solved? | | https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1400425028022308874 | rtkwe wrote: | The Concorde actually had a pretty profitable final couple | months when they cut prices down from ultra premium because it | massively increased their utilization. Boom also seems to have | plans for Pacific routes according to their website, so I | assume they're planning their range accordingly. | paulpan wrote: | Good point, higher utilization is one of Southwest's key | competitive advantages since they're able to squeeze 1 extra | trip for their aircraft than competitors. | | Significantly cutting travel time should also enable higher | utilization. E.g. cutting LA-Sydney route in half (15hrs to | 7hrs) theoretically enables fitting in a roundtrip in the | timespan of a one-way. | bob33212 wrote: | They create a PR boost for United. They can tell the business | travelers that "Super Diamond Elite" business travelers will | get first access to these flights (Dates TBD). Making those | people more likely to go with United over Delta. | athenot wrote: | > Noise means you can't do US domestic | | Part of that was also political. It's petty and I wish it | weren't true, but a _domestic-made_ plane making noise will be | better accepted than a _foreign-made_ plane making noise. | notahacker wrote: | Whilst this is true historically, the regulations exist and I | don't see rewriting them to tolerate sonic booms as a vote | winner, not even for those committed to arguing against the | trend towards stricter restrictions on greenhouse gases etc. | A lot more people will live near the flightpaths than use | them | henrikeh wrote: | Do you have any sources to back that up? U.S. Congress funded | development of the SST (Supersonic Transport) back in the | 60'ies but stopped funding in 1971 due to concerns and | displeasure of exactly the sonic booms (and ozone layer | issues). So five years before the Concorde entered service a | domestic plane was not seen as being worth. | | Heppenheimer's The Space Shuttle Decision has a chapter where | this is discussed in detail. | neom wrote: | These three (albeit somewhat long) videos answer a lot of the | questions you asked: | | Flight of the New Concordes - | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZLykryZLFk | | Supersonic Planes are Coming Back (And This Time, They Might | Work) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg | | Supersonic Flight - What Does The Future Hold? - | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3K04wgf_ZQ | mshook wrote: | You could add: - Concorde didn't work flying east because with | the time zone thing, you might be flying real fast, you still | arrive super late. Meaning you could as well pay less and fly | the red eye... | bberenberg wrote: | I fly SF->NYC redeye regularly. The practical side of takeoff | and landing is that I get 4 hours of sleep max. I also start | to sleep around 2AM NYC time. If I could reduce flight time | to 2.5 hours, I would rather land in NYC at 2AM and get to | bed there so I can start my day much better rested. | mshook wrote: | But do you fly in first class? Because for cheaper than | Concorde, that's what you could get (and that's what | Concorde was competing against) and usually in first, they | don't wake you up for breakfast or whatever before you | land... | | And the other issue in your case is flying supersonic over | land but I hear you. | michaelt wrote: | First class is all very well, but you don't escape the | unfamiliar bed; the noise of the engines and other | passengers; the weird air pressure; the fact you're in | your travel clothes; the strangely corporate environment; | or the jostling and noise of landing and takeoff. | | Of course, some people are less sensitive to these things | than others - and jobs with a lot of travel probably | select for people who find the experience of flying | tolerable. | bberenberg wrote: | Yes I do and they absolutely do wake you up before you | land. It's an FAA requirement that the seat be upright. | nopzor wrote: | it might be an FAA requirement to be upright, but iirc | some other international airlines (eg. virgin atlantic, | air new zealand) allow you to keep your biz class seat in | seating position during takeoff and landing. | ghaff wrote: | At some point, I decided I'm too old for redeyes unless I | really have no choice. Yes, it means getting up early to | get in at a reasonable time but at least I sleep in a real | bed. | vidarh wrote: | I've flown London to Washington DC for meetings and then | immediately returned to the airport to fly back, and I'd have | _loved_ to have had the ability to fly supersonic for trips | like that. | | So while "just" flying East might be less attractive, very | brief return flights will be attractive even if one of the | legs doesn't seem very beneficial. | | There are plenty of scenarios cutting hours off will improve. | Whether there are enough of them to make Boom profitable is | another matter. | parhamn wrote: | I made this comment earlier, but Wendover has a great video on | this very topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg | quux wrote: | No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. | tzs wrote: | That's not really an apt comparison. | | When iPod came out there were numerous successful portable | music players already on the market. The iPod skeptics were | not skeptical that there was a market for a portable music | player--they were skeptical that the iPod's particular | combination of features and limitations would do well. | | With supersonic passenger service no one has demonstrated | that there is actually a viable market for it. The two prior | attempts were both heavily subsidized by government (Russia | for the Tu-144, France and the UK for the Concorde). | | It is quite different to ask "why do you think this product | will do well against a bunch of established, viable | competitors?" and to ask "why do you think this product can | succeed in a market that everyone who has tried before has | failed in?". | quux wrote: | IIRC Concorde development was highly subsidized by the | government but it became a sustainable business for British | Airways as long as there were wealthy business travelers | willing to pay a huge premium to get between the financial | centers of NYC and London in 3 hours. After 9/11 a lot of | that business went away and Concorde wasn't viable anymore. | notahacker wrote: | Boom is taking the government's role, not BA's. I once | did a back of the envelope calculation which suggested | the government could have lost less money paying for a | NY- Europe business class ticket on a regular aircraft | for every person ever to fly Concorde. It was as | spectacularly bad commercially as it was impressive | technologically. | | It was a sustainable business for BA because they got | several aircraft at giveaway prices (the minister who | sold them conceded it may have been the worst deal ever | negotiated by a government!) which they could charge | extortionate rates to fly on, but they still weren't | flying more than one of them at a time very often. | marcosdumay wrote: | > - Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes | | > - And airlines want lots of identical planes, not one special | one for one route | | On both of those, the passengers are kings. If enough people | decide they want to pay a lot to cross the ocean quickly, those | things will not be a problem. | [deleted] | theptip wrote: | Can't you do coast-to-coast? I thought the requirement is no | sonic boom over land, but you can fly out over the ocean and | then turn around at Mach N. Eg SF<>NYC would be an obvious | route that is worth adding some miles at the start, if you can | go 3-4x quicker. | mpweiher wrote: | The boom happens whenever you're flying supersonic, not just | when you transition from < Mach 1 to > Mach 1. | lvspiff wrote: | I hope everyone is given flight suits as just the image of a | plane full of people making a 180 degree turn at 600mph to | accelerate to 740mph is somewhat comical. I know not entirely | what you are suggesting but its immediately the thought that | came to mind. | NegativeLatency wrote: | The plane might not be efficient at subsonic or transonic | speeds. | dharmab wrote: | A sonic boom is a continuous noise, not just at the | transition. You perceive it as a single noise at the ground, | but so does every other person along the entire flight path. | | Boom's aircraft uses a modern design that reduces the | loudness of the sonic boom. | theptip wrote: | Thanks for the correction, I did have that incorrect. TIL. | | Interesting follow-up -- from | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom, the angle of the | shockwave cone decreases (i.e. gets narrower) as the | plane's velocity goes up. I'm wondering at what Mach number | would the cone be tight enough that it doesn't intersect | land? | aetherson wrote: | The world is also a lot richer now than it was in the 70s. Some | luxuries that didn't make sense 40 years ago may make sense | now. | avernon wrote: | The Concorde basically used afterburners. It used fuel at | incredible rates. Boom is using more modern engine technology | that can achieve the high cruise speeds using less fuel. This | also increases effective range. | | So it solves 2,3, and 4. Can do Pacific. Cheaper to operate. | Can be used on all overseas routes. | kleton wrote: | >[Concorde] used reheat (afterburners) only at take-off and | to pass through the upper transonic regime to supersonic | speeds | | The Concorde was capable of supercruise. | defaultname wrote: | Flying above the speed of sound without using afterburners is | referred to as supercruise, and it is something the Concorde | was capable of doing. | | There aren't a lot of supercruise aircraft out there. The | F22, for instance, can supercruise effectively, but the F35 | cannot. | iab wrote: | True, but in defense of the F-35 it also can't fly very far | mnw21cam wrote: | Concorde only used the afterburner in takeoff, and while | transitioning to supersonic. It would happily cruise | supersonic without the afterburner. | | Still, we have had a few years of engine technology | improvements since then. | gsnedders wrote: | Note that the Concorde B (which never happened due to the | eventual low sales of Concorde A) would've had no | afterburners, and been quieter for climb-out and | significantly lower fuel burn; it certainly was getting | within reach during the time period of its development. | mshook wrote: | Concorde engines were actually some of the most efficient | ones while cruising above Mach 1.7 (because afterburners were | only used to take off and to go transonic until M1.7). So it | was efficient but only when flying fast. | | Wiki says: The overall thermal efficiency of the engine in | supersonic cruising flight (supercruise) was about 43%, which | at the time was the highest figure recorded for any normal | thermodynamic machine. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce/Snecma_Olympus_593 | masklinn wrote: | That's basically all fast flying planes. Engines are | designed and tuned for cruising speed, not for going up to | cruising speed. | | The SR-71 was not exactly manoeuvrable or efficient at low | speeds, its efficiency range was above M3. | kayodelycaon wrote: | From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise | | The Concorde only needed afterburners to get to speed and | altitude. They did not use afterburners for supersonic flight | at altitude. | | According to someone on the talk page, the Concord's engines | acted as ramjets at high altitude. | mshook wrote: | Not at all, the magic was in the intake which slowed down | the air so the turbojet engine could use it. And that's why | it was so efficient when flying at VMAX. | | Wiki again: Forces from the internal airflow on the intake | structure are rearwards (drag) on the initial converging | section, where the supersonic deceleration takes place, and | forwards on the diverging duct where subsonic deceleration | takes place up to the engine entry. The sum of the 2 forces | at cruise gave the 63% thrust contribution from the intake | part of the propulsion system. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls- | Royce/Snecma_Olympus_593 | kayodelycaon wrote: | Wow. This is cool. Looks like cutting-edge technology for | 1972. (Apollo 11 landing was in 1969) The engines had | digital control system connected to digital sensors in | the front of the plane. | mshook wrote: | It was cutting edge and in a way the Franco-British | Apollo program in terms of engineering. I mean not only | in terms of speed, but engines, material, fly by wire, | anti skid (aka abs), carbon brakes, CoG adjustment to | reduce drag, even the now common Airbus flight stick was | tested on Concorde... | | I remember reading a book by an engineer from the | Concorde program (he's from the UK) who got invited by | the Americans working on the B-1 bomber (which was | initially supposed to be a M2.2 thing). | | They wanted to exchange about air intakes problems such | as efficiency, surges, and all. The author was not | impressed at all by what had been developed and tested on | the B-1. And he thought what they had on Concorde was so | much more advanced (he might have been totally biased of | course). | | Because as people say, Concorde was not tested, it was | developed (hence the many prototypes, pre-production and | first production models) because a lot of the technology | had to be created and if it didn't, it had to be modified | to be usable on a civilian aircraft. | | A classic example is pulling the throttle all the way | back while at full speed: on most fighter jets of the | era, you'd completely trash the turbine if you did that. | So they had to create a plane which did the right thing | for pilots who weren't trained like fighter pilots... | | It was also a case of doing all the wrong thing in terms | of management. Like assembling two of the same things on | each side of the Channel to please respective | governments... | avernon wrote: | https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/will-boom- | supersonics-... | vesinisa wrote: | > Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes | | Common misconception. The Concorde was absolutely quite | profitable throughout, and massively so after they adjusted the | prices down at the very end when it was already being shut down | due to safety reasons. | awill wrote: | safety reasons? There weren't any safety reasons. | | The Concorde was the safest plane ever. It flew for 27 years | with just 1 accident. And that accident wasn't Concorde's | fault. Another plane dropped metal on the runway, and | Concorde ran over the metal and got damaged right before | takeoff. | [deleted] | notahacker wrote: | There are individual passenger aircraft that flew more | hours and cycles than the entire Concorde production run | without incident. The accident where running over a piece | of metal on a runway during takeoff resulted in a raging | inferno and ultimately the deaths of everyone on board | wasn't the first time Concorde's unusually-prone-to-failure | tyres had punctured a fuel tank when they exploded, or | something likely to happen if a different aircraft ran over | the same piece of metal. Separately, it also had two | spontaneous in-flight structural failures of the rudder. | All this in a production run of 14 aircraft that spent most | of their life on the ground. | | Considering it was a complete novelty designed in the 1970s | it did OK, but I don't think there are many airframes its | safety record compares favourably with. | pkulak wrote: | The biggest problem is that supersonic just steals first-class | passengers from other routes, where the profits are higher. | | Also, far higher climate impacts, which is what concerns me the | most. Lets just be happy with crossing an entire ocean in 6 | hours. | ErikVandeWater wrote: | While you are canabalizing some of your own 1st class | passengers, the first airline to get a supersonic route going | will also take first class passengers from other airlines. | pkulak wrote: | You mean the third airline? This has already been tried | before, and the financials didn't work out the first time. | Maybe everything has changed, but who really knows. | | And frankly, I'm hoping for failure. Some of these new | super-sonic companies are trying to get approval for | continental routes, saying that the boom is only as loud a | car door. Like a car door slamming shut for 3000 miles is | no big deal. The super-wealthy have enough toys to | inconvenience the rest of us and destroy the climate; they | can keep hanging out in first class, or on their private, | subsonic jets. | usrusr wrote: | When I read the headline I was quite confused at first, a | big why why why? Then it came to me, it's a business bet | on wealth concentration. Conventional first will always | be far more comfortable, private far more convenient, but | supersonic easily outdoes them both in bragging rights. | And think of the networking opportunities when (if?) | passengers are almost as packed as in coach despite | paying a huge entry fee! | | And the environmental aspect won't feel too bad actually: | if you are traveling first you produce x times as much | CO2 for your trip as others (how many more could they | take aboard if that are was as densely packed as | regular?), only because you are, well, too soft to sit | out a few hours. But if the CO2 happens because | supersonic, you get something very real in return. Time! | Who could blame you? | qayxc wrote: | > - Noise means you can't do US domestic | | The companies working on supersonic jets are in process of | lobbying hard to get FAA approval for exemptions from noise | regulations. [1] | | > - Concorde didn't have the range for Pacific | | Not their target market, they want to be a successful niche. | | > - Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes | | They claim improvements in fuel efficiency and their unique | selling point (apart from the speed advantage) is the use of | "green" fuels (whatever that implies). Also, see previous | point: they don't want to be mainstream anyway. | | > - And airlines want lots of identical planes, not one special | one for one route | | Not a problem they want to solve. Niche and all. | | While the economics are indeed questionable, these products | cannot be compared to flagship products like Concorde. The jets | are significantly smaller (50 PAX vs. 92-128 PAX), benefit from | 50 years of progress in aviation technology, manufacturing, and | operations and they have a very specific use case in mind. | | Concorde was the result of a technological dick-waving contest | between Western Europe and the US w.r.t. civil aviation | technology. Its purpose was as much of a political nature as it | was an attempt at testing/demonstrating the practicality of | supersonic passenger jets. | | It ultimately failed, but that doesn't mean contemporary | attempts have to due to the differences in scope, technology | and potentially regulatory environment. | | I remain sceptical, but I wouldn't want to write it off as a | failure from the get-go. | | [1] https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/flight- | te... | andi999 wrote: | Even if they get an excemption, affected people will probably | come with pitchforks and torches to the headquarter. These | supersonic booms are really loud. | supportlocal4h wrote: | I grew up under fairly constant sonic booms. They always | seemed pretty cool because it meant a high performance | aircraft was overhead. I'm sure they annoyed some people. | They excited some people. And they just became mundane to a | lot of people. | hannasanarion wrote: | Are you confusing sonic booms with regular loud aircraft? | Sonic booms over land are illegal in most countries. The | US military only ever does supersonic exercises far | offshore. | the__alchemist wrote: | It happens accidentally from time to time. It's easier to | do (accidentally or on purpose) in some planes, and | engine-variants than others. | TinkersW wrote: | I grew up in a remote part of northern California, and I | can assure you that every so often a military jet would | would fly right over our house at super sonic speeds(and | very low altitude, barely above the tree tops). | | It was mind numbingly loud and obnoxious-the entire house | would shake and rattle and you couldn't hear anything but | the rumbling. | _ph_ wrote: | I also grew up with constant sonic booms. There is no way | to mistake a loud aircraft for them. This is like | mistaking a loud engine with a gun shot. | | I grew up in Germany, and whatever the laws said | (probably sonic booms were illegal), they didn't apply | for the allied troups (mostly British and American in my | region). So jet fighters going supersonic pretty close to | the ground were a rather common thing, you might hear one | once a week or so. | | (Technically, Germany became only with the 2+4 treaty in | 1990 a fully souvereign nation, formally ending the | occupied state after WW2) | jjwiseman wrote: | The U.S. military does supersonic flights over land, too. | For example, see page 39 of the R-2508 Complex Users | Handbook[1], the section titled "Supersonic Operations". | The R-2508 complex[2] is an airspace around the area of | Edwards Air Force Base in California.) | | 1. https://www.edwards.af.mil/Portals/50/R-2508%20User%27 | s%20Ha... 2. https://www.edwards.af.mil/About/R-2508/ | SonicScrub wrote: | I'm not the person you are replying to, but there is a | possible explanation if the person is American. In 1964 | the FAA organized an experiment to perform supersonic | fly-overs of Oklahoma City over a period of 6 months. | Quoting from Wikipedia "the experiment was intended to | quantify the effects of transcontinental supersonic | transport (SST) aircraft on a city, to measure the booms' | effect on structures and public attitude, and to develop | standards for boom prediction and insurance data." | | Link to the wiki page if you are curious | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_te | sts | | Here are some highlights | | - The US Airforce performed ~8 booms per day between 7am | and the afternoon | | - In the first 14 weeks, 147 windows in the city's two | tallest buildings were broken | | - An attempt to lodge an injunction against the tests was | denied by a district court judge, who said that the | plaintiffs could not establish that they suffered any | mental or physical harm and that the tests were a vital | national need | | - Testing was paused for a time when activist groups | sought a restraining order against the testing | | - The Saturday Review published an article titled The Era | of Supersonic Morality, which criticized the manner in | which the FAA had targeted a city without consulting | local government | | - All this public pressure ended the testing early | | - There were 9,594 complaints of damage to buildings, | 4,629 formal damage claims, and 229 claims for a total of | $12,845.32, mostly for broken glass and cracked plaster. | lostlogin wrote: | > There were 9,594 complaints of damage to buildings, | 4,629 formal damage claims, and 229 claims for a total of | $12,845.32, mostly for broken glass and cracked plaster. | | That doesn't seem much money. Even with inflation which | makes it $110,600ish it seems very reasonable. I can | imagine one difficult window install making up this much. | bentsku wrote: | Yeah in France we have them too, I live not too far from | Mirage/Rafale air bases, and they fly over sometimes. I | remember it was more common around the 2000s, nowadays I | hear it less than once a year. I think it happened over | Paris last year and people freaked out, calling for a | bomb and everything.It was for an interception mission. | | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/world/europe/boom- | noise-r... | shawabawa3 wrote: | I remember hearing sonic booms while on holiday in wales | as a child, just looked it up and it looks like a couple | still happen every year | | I assume the military can decide to be exempt from the | law if they want | pw201 wrote: | They can in the UK. Back in January, the QRA Typhoons | chasing an unresponsive aircraft back in January went | right overhead at 10000 ft at supersonic speeds. That was | loud: https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/huge- | sonic-boom-... | rsync wrote: | "Even if they get an excemption, affected people will | probably come with pitchforks and torches to the | headquarter. These supersonic booms are really loud." | | Agreed. | | I grew up near[1] the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs | and I have a _very distinct_ childhood memory of some cadet | breaking the sound barrier over our town. | | I was (figuratively) knocked out of my bed. It was | unbelievably loud. I thought the world was ending. | | To be fair, this was probably a very low altitude flight so | it was probably much worse than a "normal" sonic boom. | | Still... | | [1] Canon City, CO | FireBeyond wrote: | > They claim improvements in fuel efficiency and their unique | selling point (apart from the speed advantage) is the use of | "green" fuels (whatever that implies). Also, see previous | point: they don't want to be mainstream anyway. | | That seems a logistical issue to me. Airport fueling services | have Jet A/A1. So airlines buying Boom will have to arrange | contracts to supply these "green" fuels at service | destinations? | fancy_pantser wrote: | They've been using Prometheus Fuels (a YC-backed company | with further investment from US DOE and BMW i Ventures) | thus far, starting with a 2019 deal. It will probably be up | to United as to how they fuel the aircraft once in service, | but they are basically touting that it is using a carbon- | neutral fuel source all through R&D and Prometheus is using | Boom to show that it can produce A1 (or possibly JP-8 with | additives) in some new ways starting with ethanol and | renewable energy sources. | | https://www.globenewswire.com/news- | release/2019/06/18/187048... | | https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/09/20200916-prometheu | s... | gsnedders wrote: | > The companies working on supersonic jets are in process of | lobbying hard to get FAA approval for exemptions from noise | regulations. [1] | | Note that Boom _isn't_ focusing on noise currently, unlike | the other companies (which are much more focused on bizjets), | knowing this will limit the routes they can fly on even with | any regulatory changes. | | They're content to start with just the oceanic routes (and | notably they're aiming for longer range than Concorde, and | able to fly at least some trans-Pacific routes non-stop); | presumably future iterations when it's known whether there | will be regulatory changes (and what they'll be) could aim | for lower noise and overland flight. | jvm wrote: | To actually answer your questions: | | - Noise means you can't do US domestic | | They don't seem to be targeting this. | | - Concorde didn't have the range for Pacific | | They do seem to be attempting Pacific range. | | - Costs didn't work for Atlantic routes | | They are trying to bring down costs considerably. | | - And airlines want lots of identical planes, not one special | one for one route | | This will certainly be a drawback, although if they could take | e.g. 50% of premium transoceanic it won't be so specialized. | nine_k wrote: | If the plane goes supersonic at 10 miles of altitude, will it | still make much sound on the surface? It's not just distance, | it's the pressure of the air at the altitude, too. | | Haven't engines improved a lot since 1967? | | No idea about cost, but currently oil is cheap and abundant, | compared to 1970s, and the U.S. has a large domestic supply. | | Regarding identical planes, I suppose first Boom's supersonic | planes are going to be mostly identical. But even standard | airliners get small changes with every dozen planes built. | nimbius wrote: | you forgot another big one the Concord faced: cosmic radation. | The plane carried a geiger counter. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Radiation_concerns | ginko wrote: | But even if you get a higher dose per unit of time, you spend | less time in the air so your overall dose is lower. Your link | mentions that. I guess the main exception would be for | personnel that did a lot of flights. That could be reduced by | requiring longer ground breaks than with subsonic aircraft. | dharmab wrote: | The amount of radiation you receive during a regular flight | is quite small, and more than you would receive on a | supersonic flight: https://youtu.be/TRL7o2kPqw0?t=307 | vmarsy wrote: | Right, that's something I was wondering when Boom was | announced a few years back [1]. Will radiation be even worse | for the crew if the plane body is made of carbon-fiber vs | thicker metal like the Concorde was? | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12791122 | varjag wrote: | The first one (or at least aspires to). | nemetroid wrote: | Do they? The FAQ suggests that they are not aiming to do | supersonic flight over land: | | > Won't the sonic boom be loud? | | > Overture flights will focus on 500+ primarily transoceanic | routes that benefit from supersonic speeds--such as New York | to London or San Francisco to Tokyo. Overture won't generate | a sonic boom over land cruising at subsonic speeds. | andi999 wrote: | So what are the other 497+ possible routes (new York Paris | also works) ? I read somewhere that after a Concorde test | flight to Singapore, India complaint strongly and stopped | the airway. | cedilla wrote: | It should be noted that these problems aren't the only | important reason why Concorde failed. Pre-orders were made in | 1963-1967 and almost all were cancelled in 1973 due to the oil | price shock, in addition to a 500% increase in sales price. | | Concorde had a bit of bad timing. It was released during the | worst crisis of aviation (until 9/11), and there was already a | second version planned with increased fuel efficiency, but that | came never to be with all orders being cancelled. And those | cancellations also meant that all economies of scale advantages | were gone. | jameshart wrote: | In fact, specifically _United_ ordered six Concordes in 1966, | and canceled the order in 1972. | | Plenty of time for this deal to go south. | Hamuko wrote: | > _Concorde had a bit of bad timing. It was released during | the worst crisis of aviation_ | | It doesn't feel like Boom has the timing on its side either. | Feels like we're still in a massive aviation crisis and I'm | not sure how long it's gonna take before things look good for | the industry. | mrandish wrote: | > Feels like we're still in a massive aviation crisis | | Commercial aviation tends to be a cyclical industry so | there will always be a crisis somewhere on the horizon. | Airlines like United are trying to broaden their offerings | so that they can better maintain margins in a downturn. | Some "Time is Money" expense account travelers will always | have money to spend on a premium product like getting there | twice as fast. | gpm wrote: | On the flip side Boeing seems to be in the middle of | imploding, the ideal time for a new player to come in. | nopzor wrote: | i agree with the gist of your comment, but the us | government will never allow boeing to truly implode. | _ph_ wrote: | But if we are, as I hope, on the peak of the crisis, and | Boom wants to come to marked towards the end of the decade, | it could be there exactly at the time the airline industry | is in the next boom. | standardUser wrote: | In what way is there a crisis? The major US carriers keep | expanding. keep adding new routes, buying more places, etc. | Air travel was at an all time high before the pandemic and | is likely to rebound and hit new records in coming years. | londons_explore wrote: | No way. Commercial air travel is ready for a 10 year | slowdown. | | The main profit center for commercial air travel was | businessmen going places, not too concerned how much | flights would cost. | | Now business meetings happen by video conference. Flying | round the world for a 3 hour meeting will never be big | again. | rootusrootus wrote: | TBH, I fully expect that by the end of this year our | company will resume sending management on two-week | excursions every six months to Hyderabad. | | Now we know how to leverage video conferencing for | meetings, and we are convinced more than ever of the | limitations given current technology. | ghaff wrote: | In fairness, most business travel is not flying around | the world for a 3 hour meeting. I do expect events, | roadshows, series of customer meetings, etc. to come back | --albeit probably gradually and _perhaps_ not reaching | prior levels. | standardUser wrote: | "Commercial air travel is ready for a 10 year slowdown." | | You're not really offering any evidence, just | speculation. The actions of the major airlines suggest an | expansion, not a retraction. | londons_explore wrote: | Are they expanding... Or are they switching towards more | fuel efficient planes with the expectation that it won't | be long before countries start restricting flights that | produce too much CO2? | bluGill wrote: | Airplanes have a lifespan. Janky "third world" countries | will let you fly a plane that should have been scrapped, | but the big airlines in major countries scrap their old | planes at the end of life to ensure flying is safe. | Getting more fuel efficient planes is a side effect (and | with the cost of fuel one they are excited to get) | toomuchtodo wrote: | If Boom succeeds, we'll get less expensive supersonic | travel (that is going to compete against something | ballistic like Starship). If Boom fails, someone will buy | the tech and still use the jigs, tooling, and IP for | something in the aerospace domain (hopefully). Either way, | Boom folks get to work on something they enjoy and is | meaningful to them (hopefully), and we all get any benefit | (hopefully) from their time grinding on aerodynamics, fluid | dynamics, and material science problems. | fnord77 wrote: | did anyone buy the jigs, tooling, etc. for the concorde? | bentsku wrote: | Airbus used the new tech for their next generations of | plane I believe. I guess the fly-by-wire has been used | for the A320 soon after. ABS brakes, a more resistant | steel alloy, there is this list in French for some of the | innovation made for the Concorde and used elsewhere | afterward. | | http://www.club-concorde.org/ssc/ret_tech-fr.htm | toomuchtodo wrote: | Different times. Communications and financing are a | different beast today. One can reach out to folks they'd | never have interacted with in the old days (Twitter, for | example). Someone with experience could put together 7 | digit financing in a few days, 8 digit financing in | weeks, maybe more. | shakezula wrote: | This is one of the most interesting features (or bugs, | depending who you ask) about the current time we live in. | We can organize massive funding and technological efforts | like this over morning coffee and Twitter banter. | dehrmann wrote: | I think Airbus owned them outright. | cedilla wrote: | Airbus pledged to supply to tools and spare parts for | Concorde until the late 2000s, so yes. | | (Of course they stopped supplying them in 2003 when the | service was retired after the crash). | tiborsaas wrote: | If Boom fails, it will be a glorious day for tech | journalists to write the punniest headline. | wussboy wrote: | I admire your restraint. | lumost wrote: | Boom's premise is that they can reduce the sonic booms to | acceptable levels while making incremental progress on fuel and | maintenance costs. | | Airlines are likely expecting that business trips flying coach | are going to radically diminish. Offering a super-premium fast | flight for the remaining business travelers who must travel but | have a reduced tolerance for it is a smart move. | whoisjuan wrote: | But isn't Boom selling a vision for affordable supersonic | flights? | | What you're suggesting about "super-premium" flights doesn't | map to what's being publicly said about Boom or the | fundamental principles of commercial flying. As a matter of | fact, the Concorde ultimately failed for those very same | niche-economy reasons. | | What's your source for saying that business trips flying | coach will diminish? | lumost wrote: | > What's your source for saying that business tripes flying | coach will diminish? | | That's an unsourced opinion based on personal experience. | Zoom has become a much more common method of connecting | with remote teams. I don't see a compelling reason to | travel for non-critical business functions, and if the | travel is that business critical then I can probably get my | company to pay the expense of a premium ticket. | | There are probably 2 travel occasions per year where the | business travel is more of a "fun" activity such as | conferences etc. I'll still fly coach for those. | bluGill wrote: | In my experience zoom meetings work a lot better if you | meet the people in person once in a while. Human nature | is someone you know in person is more trusted than an | image on a screen. | iso1210 wrote: | So instead of flying trans atlantic every 2 months it's | once a year. That's an 80% drop in demand. | ghaff wrote: | Affordable is relative. International business class from | NYC to London is probably going to run you $3-4K RT for a | business class seat which is absolutely routine for senior | business people. Assuming you consider that affordable-- | which it certainly is compared to a private plane--a 50% | premium over that would still seem to be in the affordable | category. Doesn't mean it's cheap of course. | | The Concorde was a premium over sub-sonic first class but | it wasn't anything like double. | theptip wrote: | Agreed, I thought Boom was positioning itself as "the cost | of a business class ticket", not "the cost of a Concorde | ticket". | iso1210 wrote: | JFK-LHR-JFK business class is about $9k assuming you're | travelling fairly flexibly without a Saturday night away, | at least pre-covid. | | Even a month away I can't see a direct flight for less | than $8k return leaving JFK evening of Jul 11th and | returning July 16th. | | The flights are pretty much empty at the moment, but they | would be at any price. Doesn't mean that VS/DL will sell | for $7k (undercutting BA/AA's $8k), it's effectively a | cartel. | ghaff wrote: | First of all, don't be surprised if a goal of "the cost | of a business class ticket" translates into something | like 50% or 100% more. | | Also the Concorde was not that much of a premium over | first class on, say, a 747. I'm remembering +30% or +50%. | Of course, that first class ticket was very expensive if | you inflate it to today's money. | AlexTWithBeard wrote: | I think Concorde was profitable - at least for British Airways. | ghaff wrote: | Well, yes. If you ignore the development costs, British | Airways turned an operating profit. | mshook wrote: | Same with Air France, Concorde got profitable with all the | special flights (supersonic loops, world tours and all | these). | SideburnsOfDoom wrote: | Boom talks about | | - much lower noise than Concorde (mentioned elsewhere in this | discussion). Ironically, they reduce the "boom". | | - Pacific crossings. 4,900 miles range ( | https://onemileatatime.com/boom-supersonic/ ) Tokyo - Seattle | is about the furthest within that, at 4,777 miles. California | to Hawaii is easily in range, USA to Australia is far out of | range, but Brisbane to Hawaii is in range. | | - Article talks about 15 planes not one. | | Have they solved those yet? They're not flying yet, so no. But | that's what they're aiming at. | dehrmann wrote: | > Tokyo - Seattle is about the furthest within that | | There's about the shortest viable route I can imagine. I | could see refueling stops being a thing, though. SFO-SIN is a | pretty long flight, so an hour to refuel in Tokyo wouldn't be | so bad. | SideburnsOfDoom wrote: | > There's about the shortest viable route I can imagine | | Right, this (Tokyo - Seattle) seems like a minimum viable | Pacific crossing. | | San Francisco to Tokyo is 5,133 miles, so it is out of | range. | | How about San Francisco to Hawaii, Hawaii to Tokyo, and | Tokyo to Singapore. ;) | dharmab wrote: | Boom's aircraft don't make as loud a sonic boom as Concorde. | Both NASA and Boom will conduct tests of this design in the mid | 2020s to measure the sound at ground level in various | conditions. | | https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/features/how-nasa-wil... | nemetroid wrote: | Are you saying NASA/Lockheed Martin's X-59 is related to | Boom? Or that Boom have similar goals? | bryanlarsen wrote: | NASA's flight will validate and improve the computer models | that Boom is using to design their plans. | nemetroid wrote: | Is this a stated plan of Boom's (in particular, with | regard to noise), or speculation? | | Boom's page on why their aircraft won't have the same | fate as the Concorde focuses purely on (fuel and route) | economics, not noise [1]. | | 1: https://boomsupersonic.com/flyby/post/will-boom- | supersonics-... | dharmab wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R43gKMWAPco | nemetroid wrote: | This video doesn't mention sonic booms, nor NASA, at any | point. | dalbasal wrote: | Despite these problems, Concorde managed to fly for a long | time... on the routes that they managed to fly. | | The reasons that they stopped flying were different. It cost a | lot, and was a lot more cramped than first class or private... | the competition. Meanwhile, the time you spend in airports | diluted the time you save by flying faster. If these could fly | from LCA to a similarly small US port, speed makes a lot more | sense. | | That said, this will probably fail. Most air travel stuff | fails. I'm hoping it won't. Progress is fun. | Symbiote wrote: | I don't think the size of the airport made much difference: | at LHR and JFK BA had a special lounge and other | arrangements. You had to arrive 30 minutes before if taking | luggage, otherwise just early enough to get through fast- | track security. | | https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde-cabin-- | passenger-e... | dalbasal wrote: | Just the thought of LHR makes me want to go to bed, though | admittedly, I always fly with the plebs. | iso1210 wrote: | LHR T5, arrive 40 minutes before takeoff - especially if | you're going from a high numbered A gate for a small | plane (which you could arrange for a premium service) | security takes about 2 minutes, gate closes at t-20 for | normal planes. | | Not sure why you'd use it from Cyprus (LCA is Larnaca). | If it could operate on a short runway though, London City | to JFK or LaGuardia ala the BA airbus would be | interesting, although the stop for Shannon has never | appealed. | [deleted] | herlitzj wrote: | afavour (via Benedict Evans) c. 2005 | | - No charging network, can't drive away from home | | - Battery tech not there, no realistic range | | - Too expensive, no one will pay that much for a car they can't | drive anywhere | | - Everyone wants an SUV or an affordable sedan, not some niche | vehicle. Who's going go buy it? | | Which ones has Tesla solved? | | Moving an industry takes time. Will Boom do it? Who knows. But | this line of thinking is kind of short sighted and defeatist, | don't you think? | MattGaiser wrote: | Tesla has built a charging network, done a lot of work on the | battery/range, and built an electric SUV. | | So I would say they have made at least solid progress on | three of them. | herlitzj wrote: | That's the point. Sitting at the start and saying "We're | not at the finish" isn't a useful way to get anywhere | fairity wrote: | It should be obvious that the market will eventually support | supersonic flights. The question is just when. OP is probably | asking these questions to determine if the time is now, or in | the future. | ghaff wrote: | There's clearly a market for it. It's just that the market | is probably a very different size if a one way trans- | Atlantic ticket is $5K vs. if it's $20K. | jollybean wrote: | Telsa was selling hype to a lot of consumers willing to wait | for perfection. | | Boom is selling a tiny handful of planes. | | So they have to solve these problems, largely when they | launch. | | Airlines are not going to run at a loss for a decade while | things tune up. | jbverschoor wrote: | No it didn't. It sold a lotus Elise, because it was the | cheapest way to deliver a car, and the MVP to showcase | electric. It did not at all sell hype to consumers waiting | for perfection | gibolt wrote: | It was barely an Elise by the time they shipped. So many | changes were needed, that they said they'd have been far | better off starting fresh, which is what they did with | the S. | jollybean wrote: | The early Teslas were overpriced for value delivered. | They had shorter range, build problems etc.. | | People wanted to buy them because they were 'buying a | dream' - and helping to move the ball forward. | | There was a huge amount of 'good faith' in the process by | early customers and supporters. Even to this day. | | Tesla is an aspirational brand and people are paying an | aspirational premium. | | Boom will definitely be that as well. Execs will humble | brag about their Boom flights, everyone will talk about - | it's super exciting, super cool. | | The issue I'm pointing to is scale ... will those smaller | tranche of buyers be able to support all of the | operational overhead of the airline and the ongoing R&D | of the company ... is the question. | herlitzj wrote: | Honestly even if all we get out of this is an affordable | low-carbon jet engine I'd call it a win. At the end of | the day, Tesla is battery company that makes cars. Maybe | Boom should try to be a jet engine company that makes | planes. | | edit: I say this as someone having little to no real | knowledge of the aerospace industry :) | nradov wrote: | Elon Musk now claims that the final production Tesla | Roadster used very few Lotus Elise parts. Even though the | vehicles looked similar they ended up changing almost | everything, and in retrospect using the Elise platform | didn't save them anything. | bryanlarsen wrote: | Starting with the Elise provided a massive benefit: the | ability to iterate. Big Design Up Front would have | massively failed -- there were way too many unknown | unknowns. | | In the end the product was nothing like the Elise. But | intermediate products were like the Elise, and could be | driven and test manufactured and could inform revisions. | A half complete scratch design could not have been. | nickik wrote: | Questionable. Going to a company that had experience with | car body designs and getting an in-house designer would | likely have been a better plan for them. | [deleted] | bryanlarsen wrote: | Many of their problem was due to the assumption that the | electric car motor & batters from AC Propulsion were | working as advertised and ready for mass production. That | assumption was wrong. So the iteration was because | changes in the propulsion system resulted in changes to | the car, and changes in the car led to changes in the | propulsion system. | FireBeyond wrote: | Elon also claims that he was the sole founder of Tesla... | | ... after he bought out the founder(s). | tw04 wrote: | Those were issues of infrastructure which weren't built out, | but could be built out. | | Are you planning on refueling the boom mid-air at supersonic | speeds? | | Tesla also took an approach that analysts who clearly weren't | "car guys" weren't expecting: mainly creating something with | massive HP and TQ. Previous electric cars had yawn-inducing | performance. Someone buying a 5-series probably at least | partially bought it for the performance, when they got behind | the wheel of a model S it was like getting behind the wheel | of a modified M5. | | Boom isn't bringing anything new to the table to solve the | issues people have listed. Tesla had a plan to solve those | issues from the get-go. | _ph_ wrote: | Boom is bringing to the table that the technology has | advenced in the last 50 years and even the Concorde might | have succeeded, if a second iteration had made it to the | market. Also, partially the Concorde failed because Boeing | opposed it. They were working on their own supersonic plane | but were a few years behind. Unfortunately, they were so | successful in blocking the Concorde, that their own project | failed as the market had become convinced that supersonic | flight doesn't work out. | sidewndr46 wrote: | More importantly, where is the budget to "contribute" to | the campaigns of enough senators to get the ban on | supersonic flight overturned? | redler wrote: | Major airlines like United have a powerful lobbying | presence. If Boom starts hitting milestones, influence | spigots will open. | ibeckermayer wrote: | Supersonic transoceanic flight seems like a very valuable | capability in and of itself | iainmerrick wrote: | Tesla _has_ at least partly solved some of those, no? | | - Charging network: don't they have their own network? I'm | sure it's not widespread enough to meet everyone's needs, but | it's not nothing and helped get the ball rolling. | | - Battery tech: has been gradually improving, range is now in | the hundreds of miles which is enough for many uses. | | - Too expensive / everybody wants an SUV: starting with | luxury and sports models and gradually following up with | mass-market models addresses both of these. | | So I think the analogous questions for Boom are good and | valid questions. Tesla had decent answers and Boom should | too. | corndoge wrote: | That was gp's point I think, that Tesla was panned at first | and solved their challenges, no reason to dismiss Boom. | nacs wrote: | That's the point OP is making -- that people early on will | be nay-sayers (like in the 2005 post) that then turns out | to be false. | SideburnsOfDoom wrote: | > that then turns out to be false. | | That then turned out to become increasingly false over | time. Buying the early stage product is a risky bet, you | hope it will take off like that, but it might not. They | do need a plan to address them, and to be trustworthy. | iainmerrick wrote: | Ah, I see, thanks! | | I still think the questions are perfectly reasonable. But | maybe it just needs to be phrased as "how do they plan to | address these?" rather than "which ones have they | solved?" | redis_mlc wrote: | > But this line of thinking is kind of short sighted and | defeatist, don't you think? | | Not in the airline industry. Aerion just folded, and Boom is | next. | | https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/aerion-shuts- | down-12346... | afavour wrote: | To be clear, my post was not written by me, but by Benedict | Evans. I reposted it here as it felt like a worthy discussion | point. | | It might be interesting to see Benedict's comments on Tesla | circa 2005 to see how they compare to Boom today. | herlitzj wrote: | True. Updated to reflect your source | seanmcdirmid wrote: | How many transcontinental flights fly USA domestic routes? If | this can cut my flying time from Seattle to Beijing, I would be | a happy camper, hopefully they can go boom over BC, Alaska, and | the Russia Fareast. | satellite2 wrote: | I think the cost analysis was valid in the 70s when CEOs and | business users were not that different from regular users. | | With CEO salaries and more generally inequalities having | exploded in the last couple decades I think the business model | might have become viable. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | I think this is key. There are now a lot more rich people who | would pay for the speed, and just as importantly a chance to | avoid the hoi polloi, than 4 decades ago. | afavour wrote: | Counterpoint: fast, accessible in flight Wifi is a reality | now. It means that flights aren't anywhere near the kind of | "dead" time they used to be. | | I'm sure some CEOs will pay whatever it costs to boost their | own egos but IMO that would push them towards private jets, | not a supersonic flight with United. I find the actual | arguments for faster flights less persuasive than they were | in the 70s. | ghaff wrote: | Premium air travel is also much more comfortable than it | was in the 70s. First class was more akin to domestic | business class today than modern lie flat seating much less | the real premium roomettes on some airlines. | | The connectivity probably does make a difference for some. | Personally, I appreciate the disconnect time. | ErikVandeWater wrote: | Being on a plane isn't technically dead time, but no matter | what, it's still much more comfortable being on the ground. | | And taking 6 hours total out of your flying time means you | have 6 more hours to enjoy your destination. Unless I was a | celebrity that would get hounded by the public, I'd rather | do TSA Pre-check + first class supersonic than a private | jet. | | The caveat for me is that I wouldn't trust a startup that | is behind its timelines to create a safe aircraft without | further information. | iso1210 wrote: | Supersonic means you can do London-New York for a afternoon | meeting in a day trip. Leave Wednesday 8AM(UK) flight, | arrive 6AM(11) in New York for an 8AM(13) breakfast | meeting, finish up about 1pm(18) and you're on the 3pm(20) | flight and back home for midnight(UK). | mikeyouse wrote: | There are _far_ more CEOs earning ~$500k /year than there | are making private jet money. I've worked for a half dozen | pretty successful SMEs and all of the C-Suite flew business | class and I suspect they'd all take the option to cut a few | hours off their trip if it was within 50% of the price of a | standard business class ticket. | ghaff wrote: | For that matter, you can get into fairly large public | enterprises where the CEO is making well into the | millions and they are not routinely flying private for a | variety of reasons--but will routinely take premium | commercial. | bluGill wrote: | Private is expensive. For fun I looked into it a few | years ago. I never did figure out how much a share buy in | was (6 figures at least), but once you have a buy in each | flight is still $7000 for a domestic flight (up to 6 | people same price) My entire family can fly just over | 1000, though that is coach not first class. Even if you | fly first class private planes are a large step up in | price. | slg wrote: | According to Boom, they are aiming for fares to be the same | price or cheaper than today's business class travel. | | Plus I imagine many of the ultrarich that you are talking | about would prefer to fly private even if it is slower than | flying commercial. Flying private also cuts into the time | saving benefit of supersonic flight. You save time pre-flight | as you can basically drive up to the plane, get in, and be | immediately ready for takeoff rather than needing to arrive | an hour or two early. And private flights operate on your | personal schedule which is obviously much more convenient | than organizing your schedule around someone else's timing. | bluGill wrote: | Private flights also go where you need to. Not a big deal | if you are headquartered in a hub and have business at a | different hub, but as you have business in distance places | a private plane ends up a lot faster because you don't have | to wait in hub airports. I know my company keeps a flight | crew in Frankfort Germany so that the CEO on trips from US | to India they can land, refuel and change pilots and be off | in 15 minutes. (I'm not clear if the crew lives there, or | just flys commercial the day before) Though if supersonic | airplanes were affordable I believe the CEO makes the US- | Asia trip often enough to buy one. | tantalor wrote: | Recent video that talks a bit about Boom: | | > Supersonic Planes are Coming Back (And This Time, They Might | Work) | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0fRlCHYyg | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | The intersection of "HN readers" and "Wendover youtube | subscribers" is surprisingly large. | | I also suspect we also all watch Technology Connections, | Techmoan, LGR, Map Men, HAI, and Periscope Films... | parthdesai wrote: | B1M if you're into construction | wp381640 wrote: | I never knew I was so into construction until I started | watching it | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | For similar material, consider _Road Guy Rob_ : | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqdUXv9yQiIhspWPYgp8_XA | Latty wrote: | CGP Grey, Practical Engineering, Real Engineering, Real | Science, Tom Scott, Johnny Harris, NileRed for some others in | a similar vein. | bemmu wrote: | Thanks for the channel tips. I was able to find them all | except for HAI. Link? | throwaway2037 wrote: | Maybe Half as Interesting | (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuCkxoKLYO_EQ2GeFtbM_bw) | ? | aero-glide2 wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/c/halfasinteresting/featured | VonGallifrey wrote: | I assume that he meant "Half as Interesting". Which is | Wendover Productions second channel with a different focus. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | You are correct. | mft_ wrote: | Although it's not mentioned, I hope people are watching Stuff | Made Here. If not, definitely check that channel out. Cool | projects, epic engineering, usually tied together with code. | | https://youtube.com/c/StuffMadeHere | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | I stopped watching _Stuff Made Here_ because he made me | feel grossly inadequate :( (seeming as I used to be a | professional roboticist briefly) | sneak wrote: | Veritasium, Electroboom, Photonic Induction, NileRed, | Practical Engineering, Applied Science, Numberphile, AvE, | abom79, mugumogu, Surinoel. | tjridesbikes wrote: | Welp, you just listed pretty much all of my most-watched | creators... | canadianfella wrote: | PBS Eons | nemo44x wrote: | If a seat would be the same as first class today then I'd fly | this. A 3 hour flight means I can take off at 7AM local and land | in London at 3PM local and be where I'd like to be by 5:00PM | local in time for a few drinks and a dinner. This would make jet- | lag much easier to deal with. | | But if it's significantly more, then no. | lcam84 wrote: | Do we really have sustainable aviation fuel? | aero-glide2 wrote: | Its very expensive right now. Expect that to change | pjerem wrote: | Of course not. | swyx wrote: | one of the most inspiring startups to come out of YC. | | i used to despair at YC just churning out more and more b2b | software bc that is understandably the problem they know well (i | think a YC partner famously said "you can get to series B just | selling to YC alums"). | | But to actually do this in the world of atoms and get market | validation... bravo. lets hope they keep a pristine safety | record, of course. | [deleted] | pmastela wrote: | https://outline.com/BFq3RL | picodguyo wrote: | Considering they're already being skewered on SNL, I have to | imagine a rebranding is in the cards. | https://youtu.be/3c6MqOB4n9o?t=14 | Turing_Machine wrote: | SNL also famously made fun of Smucker's Jelly, but they're | still doing $8 billion in annual sales nonetheless. | | ("Smucker's" sounds like the Yiddish "schmuck", derived from | the German word for "ornament" or "jewelry". It's a slang term | for male genitalia) | chitowneats wrote: | I have serious doubts that SNL is culturally relevant enough in | 2021 to trigger a rebranding exercise for this company. | picodguyo wrote: | It's not that SNL is some strong influencer, it's just | indicative that the current name will be an easy punchline | and feed into existing fears. | chitowneats wrote: | The joke isn't funny. Just like the rest of SNL. Boom will | be fine. | | Seriously. Did any of you think "explosion" before "sonic | boom" when hearing of this company for the first time? If | so, would that actually influence your perception of the | safety of their planes? | meepmorp wrote: | It's not SNL's influence, it's the fact that the brand has | filtered into mainstream entertainment as the butt of a joke. | Think of it as a signal of a larger problem. | redler wrote: | I'd say it depends on whether they're successful. "iPad" was | widely skewered as a branding choice in popular media, and we | see how that turned out. | galgot wrote: | Maybe good to remember that 18 airlines had once placed orders | for Concorde, with only the 2 national carriers flying it in | service eventually. And that The Boeing 2707 was ordered by 27 | airlines before the program being canceled... | elzbardico wrote: | Please note that in the aviation space, "ordered x planes" is a | very, very elastic concept. | verytrivial wrote: | I honestly hope VR and other telepresense stuff eats this | market's lunch. It seems like an awful lot of resources to throw | at the problem of people needing to read each other's social cues | in person. | bmmayer1 wrote: | There will always be a market for faster travel. | verytrivial wrote: | And for people smuggling. I wasn't making an economic | argument for one over the other. | nickhalfasleep wrote: | Supersonic aircraft seem like the Erie Canal to me. A much lauded | technology that gets beaten by an even newer technology. | | Any route that could pay for supersonic travel would also take a | suborbital Starship hop. | audunw wrote: | Given the fuel needed per passenger per mile, I don't think it 's | reasonable to call supersonic planes sustainable, even if they | use biofuels or synthetic fuels. As long as not all aviation fuel | is net zero carbon emission, we shouldn't build/use planes that | are unnecessarily inefficient. Also, biofuels and synthetic fuels | have their own environmental impact (land use). | | Supersonic planes are incredibly cool, but I can't help the | feeling that it's an unnecessary and harmful luxury at this | point. Although, that goes for a lot of other things used by the | ultra-wealthy. Maybe ban yachts first? | coolspot wrote: | > Maybe ban yachts first? | | Maybe ban population growth that consumes planet's resources | like mold? | pumaontheprowl wrote: | The number one contributor to increasing carbon emissions is | population growth, but the same people who pretend to be | outraged about carbon emissions are also the same people who | were adamant that we needed a full lockdown for COVID so that | not a single unnecessary person would die. You can't have it | both ways. You can't say carbon emissions are destroying the | earth and then do everything in your power to undermine | earth's natural defenses against overpopulation. | nickik wrote: | Jesus, that after 200 years this same argument is still used | is incredible. But I guess some things never die. | coolspot wrote: | That's not very substantial comment of yours. | | Did we have global climate change, ecosystems extinction | and resource depletion 200 years ago? | | Every single human on the planet consumes enormous amount | of resources during their life time, there must be some | reasonable limit on how many humans the planet can support | without being turned into concrete jungle with deserts. | nickik wrote: | In fact, more humans now then ever and we have more | resources then we ever had. | | > Did we have global climate change, ecosystems | extinction and resource depletion 200 years ago? lt Yes. | In fact some of the smartest economists and intellectual | at the time were panicking about things like 'peak-coal'. | Sound familiar? Go actually read Jevons. Others were | panicked about over-population, go read Malthus and the | Population trap. | | There was a massive popular movement in the US predicting | imminent over-population and resource exhaustion in the | 60s. Read things like The Population Bomb. | | And it always end up with the same fallacy and terrible | dangerous zero sum ideas. Jevons was so afraid of 'peak | coal' he suggested the government should roll back | technological progress so the coal would be available for | longer. | | Paul R. Ehrlich and his ilk suggested that the US should | not lend of food aid to India and said it was preferable | for them to starve now in small numbers rather then | millions later. | | Not to mention the horrible, discussing suggestion they | had about other forcible population control measures and | not just for India, but they also want such policies in | the US (This is literal professor from Standford, | suggesting forced sterilization as a solution). | | Of course 'peak oil' that nobody cares about now, was a | huge thing in the early 1990-2000s. In the 2010 people | thought rare-earth were gone run out. And yet not a | single non-renewable resource has actually ever seriously | run out. Ironically renewable resources like whales are | far easier to exhaust then non renewable resources. | | > Every single human on the planet consumes enormous | amount of resources during their life time, there must be | some reasonable limit on how many humans the planet can | support without being turned into concrete jungle with | deserts. People obsessed with this id | | This is again wrong. This is the exact zero sum fallacy | that has lead to all the fallicy explained above and | actually even worse the the much, much worse outcome of | WW1 and WW2. Read some of the text of some of the German | High Command before WW1 and all the suggestion they made. | Read Hitler nonsense about 'Lebensraum'. Its all the same | idea. | | The idea that because if the total resource base is | fixed, if there are Slaves who are consuming them, it | means less for the Germans. There is simple logical | conclusions that can be drawn for that, and they did. | | The opposite is actually true. More humans, consistently | has lead to more resources being available. Not just in | the absolute but also on a per-human bases. The total | amount of farm land needed has actually decreased in the | US. There are far more forests in Europe now then there | were in 1200. | | You can today get 1kg of almost any material cheaper then | in 1900 and you can get it in higher quality and of | course you can also get tons of materials that simply | didn't exist in 1900. Aluminum started out worth more | then gold and now is not much more expensive then dirt. | | Our total energy reserves now are larger then they have | ever been. The discovery of uranium/thorium alone | provides 10000x more energy then all forest that existed | the world in 1500. The discovery of photovoltaic alone | means we can take gigantic amounts of energy from a huge | fusion reactor in the sky. | | More humans consistently has meant the exact opposite of | what you are suggesting. Read 'The Ultimate Resource' by | Simons that was a direct response to the 'Population | Bomb' people. | | The difference between a bunch of dirt, a bunch of stone | or a bunch of dirty sand is technology. Technology, human | knowledge and productivity, is what turns utterly | worthless stuff into resources. The Nevada desert for | example has been without resources, and now it might turn | out that it is the single biggest lithium resource in the | US. What is and is not a resource depends on human | knowledge and technology. | | The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. | The bronze age didn't end because we ran out of bronze. | The iron age didn't end because we ran out of iron. The | oil age isn't ending because we are running out of oil. | | Urbanization actually means we can have far, far more | people using less space then ever before and people even | do it voluntary. There are huge parts of the US that are | basically uninhabited and actually are consistently less | inhabited over time. | | We are not even anywhere remotely close to potential | maximum efficiency of farm land. Our methods have been | improving year over year for 200+ years. And farming now | still doesn't look that different compered to 200 years | ago. We are not close to max productivity. In terms of | productivity per labor hour farming has improved even | more then when we simply looking at land productivity. | | Using actual simple fact, a marginal increasing in human | population has actually increase to resource | availability/consumption by any one human. | | Some of the smartest people and intellectuals in history | who have not understood this effect and it has to be | relearned and proven wrong over and over. Doesn't matter | if its Malthus in 1700s or Elon Musk in 1990s. There are | good and bad things that come out of this, some of these | people look at this situation and simply do something | about it themselves, Norman Borlaug or Musk. More often | however it lead to people who wanted to limit population, | take resources by force or prevent technological | progress. | jlmorton wrote: | Boom is designing the plane around e-fuels, essentially | ethanol, which will be created from direct air capture of CO2, | water, and renewable electricity, making the fuels carbon | neutral. But you can't drop-in replace A-1 with ethanol, | potentially the entire platform needs to change. | | Depending on the type of renewable energy used in the | production of the fuels, there might be some land use issues, | but this is about as close as possible to the least impactful | transportation option ever designed. Speed is always going to | decrease fuel economy, but we're not going to tackle climate | change by taking things away from people. Tech improvements | like these are exactly what we need to move forward. | the_gastropod wrote: | Yea, the greenwashing on this thing is just ridiculous. There's | nothing sustainable about flying, generally. Doing it at | supersonic speed? C'moooon | rootusrootus wrote: | > Given the fuel needed per passenger per mile | | What are the expected numbers for the Boom plane? The Concorde | was a little over 1/3 as efficient per passenger-mile compared | to a contemporary 747. I seem to recall that the planned | successor to the Concorde was considerably more fuel efficient. | | I imagine it would still be more thirsty than a typical | subsonic airliner, but I am curious to know how it actually | pencils out. | LatteLazy wrote: | So far we've made zero progress actually cutting emissions. So | why not plan for a world where everyone just keeps emitting? | That's what every other company and industry is doing... | knowaveragejoe wrote: | > So far we've made zero progress actually cutting emissions | | Are you speaking in terms of gross emissions overall? Because | a wide variety of things have individually cut emissions | substantially. | LatteLazy wrote: | Net co2e globally. I believe it's flattened out since covid | hit at least, the issue being we need it to fall massively | and we can't rely on having a pandemic every year... | jeromegv wrote: | Companies and industries won't have to pay to build a wall | around Miami to protect it from water... or the repair to New | York when everything gets flooded. That's why a government | needs to step in, companies have no incentives to step in | (why would they?). | LatteLazy wrote: | You're right. But what you're saying has been a fact for | decades. And so far government hasn't stepped in. So do you | want to live in a cave and hope the government finally | steps in, or invest in a (carbon intensive) Miami wall | project and make massive profit? | isis777 wrote: | Companies will build planes for whatever the market demands. We | need regulatory agencies to impose carbon taxes on fuel usage | so that inefficient planes are prices accordingly. | floxy wrote: | What is the current thinking for trying to price-in the | pandemic-spreading-externalities of intercontinental flights? | ErikVandeWater wrote: | I imagine it's more damaging to the environment to ground | working old planes and replace them with new ones that are | 20% more efficient. | | Grounding old planes will also result in a greater cost of | air travel. With increasing nationalism around the globe, | that may not be a good thing. | samatman wrote: | I doubt the first paragraph of this. | | Aviation uses incredible amounts of fuel, and commercial | planes are in the air more often than they are on the | ground. My guess is that the embodied energy to operating | energy ratio is lower for planes than for any other | vehicle. | WisNorCan wrote: | Hopefully, the negative effects of extreme sound pollution on | humans and animals will be considered in the trade-offs to save a | few hours of flying time for the wealthy. | | https://www.nonoise.org/library/animals/litsyn.htm | iancmceachern wrote: | From what I remember they've found a way to reduce or eliminate | the sonic boom issue. | nabla9 wrote: | Unfortunately no. | | Boom Supersonic don't plan to use low sonic boom | technologies. They just rely on ICAO and FAA lowering the | noise standards to allow supersonic flight. | chrisgp wrote: | Aren't all of the proposed routes for supersonic planes over | oceans? | 0zymandias wrote: | I might be missing something with your comment, but there are | obviously animals that live in and around oceans. | | So "just" flying at super sonic speeds over oceans seems like | it could be a disaster for marine life. The disruption to | whales from noise pollution comes to mind | samatman wrote: | Noise pollution in oceans is a serious concern, yes. | | But not transferring from the air to the ocean, the phase | transition attenuates sound a great deal. | | It's things like propeller noise and sonar which are | causing problems. A sonic boom over the ocean is not going | to ruin any whale's day, short of perhaps alarming them | when they come up for air. | kumarvvr wrote: | How is it that a technologically sophisticated aircraft company, | that probably burns through cash or needs enough of it, produces | advances in technology that have the potential to be useful | downstream in other areas, advances human knowledge and | experience in a multitude of areas, gets only 141 million, while | a creative way to sell people ads (FB, IG, SC....) gets billions | of dollars. | asperous wrote: | Valuation is based on risk and net present value of projected | profits. | | Advertising revenue is well proven and arrives quick, while as | you mentioned this endeavor has high costs, high risks, and is | not likely to be profitable for a long time, decreasing present | value. | cozzyd wrote: | Boom strikes me as a poor name for a plane. | | I think NotBoom might be better. | nacs wrote: | My thoughts exactly. | | Not just for the "Boom" catastrophic-explosion aspect but also | for the very-loud "Boom" sound created as the supersonic speed | barrier is crossed. | sneak wrote: | Sonic booms are a continuous wavefront, not caused only once | upon crossing the "supersonic speed barrier", but radiating | outward continuously from the aircraft (or rather a | compression point in front of the aircraft) as it travels. | Everyone under the flight path of a supersonic craft gets to | hear the boom as it passes over them, even though it is | "already" supersonic. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Yes, I wondered at first if it was for real. I mean who okays | "Boom" as the name of an aircraft company? | benhurmarcel wrote: | Not worse than Slack as a productivity tool, and yet it | didn't seem to matter. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Ha ha, that's true. But it's not my life that I am | entrusting to Slack. | aerospace_guy wrote: | Likely due to the relation between supersonic jets and sonic | booms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom | JKCalhoun wrote: | If you have to explain your name then you probably should | have kept looking. | MikusR wrote: | No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. | capableweb wrote: | Do airplanes usually spontaneously explode? I'd agree "Crash" | would be a aweful name, but "Boom Supersonic" makes a lot of | sense since most people know what kind of sound gets made once | you reach supersonic speeds, while I don't remember any | exploding planes really, but my memory has been off before. | cozzyd wrote: | What it immediately brings to mind is | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590 | bencollier49 wrote: | Well most aeroplanes don't spontaneously explode, but the | Boom's immediate progenitor Concorde is famous for having | done exactly that in Paris upon takeoff. And that was the end | of that. | occams_chainsaw wrote: | I think people would more likely associate "boom" with the | times planes not-so-spontaneously explode | some_random wrote: | The company is Boom, the plane is Overture. | notatoad wrote: | it's a perfectly fine name for attracting media attention and | VC dollars. in a few years they'll sell their IP to boeing or | airbus and the name will go away. | kwertyoowiyop wrote: | Zoom was taken. | baobabKoodaa wrote: | "Boom Supersonic" sounds like a company name I might have | invented when I was 12. | mathgenius wrote: | Spacex is getting so good at making rockets, perhaps one day | people will just take a ballistic trajectory across the atlantic, | and arrive in 20 minutes! It's hard to imagine anyone being in | such a hurry. I wonder if the spacex crew has thought about this | at all. | mmaunder wrote: | This isn't as crazy as it sounds. Benefits: | | - You're confining the noise to the takeoff zone rather than | the entire flight path. | | - You're in a vacuum (mostly in LEO) which massively reduces | drag and is way more fuel efficient. | | - Reentry and landing require no fuel with good planning. Space | Shuttle was a glider. | | Down sides: | | - Atmospheric reentry dissipates a LOT of energy over a short | time which introduces risk and complexity. | | - You expend a lot of energy getting into orbit or your | trajectory which also introduces risk and complexity | | - Vacuum has far greater depressurization risks than 35,000ft | samatman wrote: | The main downside is the G forces. | | Ten minutes at multiple G and an hour in free-fall sounds... | fun, kinda? But it also sounds like the kind of thing most | people wouldn't tolerate very well. | | Especially the sort of older folks who could afford it. | noahmasur wrote: | You mean like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0 | thoughtpeddler wrote: | Yes at this rate, Boom is competing more with SpaceX than | traditional airplane makers. 2029? I read that as 2031-2033. By | then, the ballistic approach may be commercially feasible. | thedogeye wrote: | when will they rename the damn company?! | jshmrsn wrote: | Wow, that's a pretty big boost in credibility if the terms of the | deal are firm. As far as I know XB-1 is still preparing for its | first test flight. So my assumption is that this deal is a | commitment to buy if (and that's a big IF), Overture actually | comes into existence with adequate specs. Hopefully there's some | immediate money in the deal as well. https://youtu.be/kraWrYS6CsE | awestley wrote: | Terrible, terrible name.. | bemmu wrote: | But it's not bland. You instantly remember it, makes you more | likely to talk about the company if only to remark on the name, | and I'd imagine it leads to more press coverage as well. | QuesnayJr wrote: | Maybe this is excessively YOLO of me, but I would be more | likely to fly a plane called Boom, not less. | nemetroid wrote: | The problem is not the association to "plane explodes", but | to "sonic boom", one of the major reasons why supersonic | aircraft never became popular. | EForEndeavour wrote: | It's a given that this is the entire point of the name: | "Boom Supersonic" is just a cool-sounding (depending on | your taste) play on "supersonic boom." It's not like the | inconvenience of supersonic booms was some secret negative | connotation that whoever named Boom Supersonic didn't know | about. | nemetroid wrote: | I agree, and it is a memorable name for this reason, | which has probably helped them _so far_. Still doesn 't | seem like a good idea to me, though. | xkjkls wrote: | All of these purchase agreements you need to look at the | conditions. Like, what are the exact terms of this purchase | agreement? What dates need to be met, what price conditions need | to be met, and how cheaply can those be reneged on. A huge amount | of time new companies negotiate purchase agreements that have a | lot of favorable terms in order to generate PR. | tmilard wrote: | Bang! Boom | ciabattabread wrote: | The planned routes are EWR-LHR, EWR-FRA, and SFO-NRT. | | United had pulled out of JFK in 2015, but just recently came | back, because it turned out JFK's "prestige" factor impacted | their business. EWR is a major United hub, but the idea of EWR | being blessed with the "prestige" of supersonic flight is a bit | funny. | | Although I wouldn't be surprised if it gets moved to JFK as | United rebuilds their operation there. A lot can happen in 8 | years. | xxxtentachyon wrote: | JFK is also a preferable location for staging supersonic flight | because you don't need to pass over/near a massive population | center on a route to northern Europe | ciabattabread wrote: | JFK/EWR/LGA - it's the same congested airspace. Does it | really make much of a difference? | redler wrote: | For the market this venture is targeting, JFK and perhaps | even (after the construction is finally done) LGA would be | preferable. Both in the city, both have Centurion lounges, | etc. But LGA is a shorter field without a substantive | international ops infrastructure. With the end-of-decade | timeline, I suspect this will end up launching from JFK. | secondbreakfast wrote: | LGA doesn't allow any flights from more than 1,500 | miles[^0], so has to be either JFK or EWR. | | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport | woodruffw wrote: | Apart from the perimeter limit, LGA's runways are also | only ~7000ft. | | I don't know what Boom's expected runway requirements | are, but if they're anything like the Concorde's | (>11000ft), there's no way they'll actually be able to | take off from LGA. | | Edit: At least one source says that Boom's plane requires | no less than 10000ft[1]. | | [1]: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/11/13/aerion- | boom-taking-... | redler wrote: | The LGA perimeter rule already has holes. Denver is | allowed, and the rule doesn't apply on Saturdays. With | the much more airline-friendly layout post-construction, | it would not be surprising if the rule is changed. | dml2135 wrote: | Yes. You need to fly over the bulk of NYC to get to Europe | from EWR. JFK is already out on Long Island. | quux wrote: | I think in the case of Concorde JFK was preferred because the | engines used loud afterburners during takeoff, climb and | acceleration to supersonic speeds. For noise abatement they | would takeoff on burners, immediately turn south to stay over | Jamaica bay, turn the burners off as they crossed over the | rockaways (populated barrier island south of JFK,) and then | go back on burners over the ocean to finish | climbing/accelerating. | | A plane like Boom that doesn't use afterburners could take | off from any airport as long as they stay subsonic over | populated areas. | humanistbot wrote: | Do you think that supersonic flights go supersonic within | seconds of takeoff? By the time they get to cruising | altitude, planes that takeoff from JFK and EWR will be well | outside of NYC. The problem is that the great circle route | from either JFK or EWR to Europe basically follows the | Northeast Corridor to Boston. | nickik wrote: | What I wonder is about the engines. It seems they are not | building them. And they seem to make optimistic claims about | them. | | Say what you want about SpaceX but they developed their own | engines and brought real innovation to the table. I'm a lot more | skeptical about a company that seems to just wants to buy some | engine. | failwhaleshark wrote: | Aerion just went out of the SSBJ business, despite having awesome | tech. ): | | How is UA going to monetize this if Concorde isn't even | (re)flying? | nerdponx wrote: | How do they plan to deal with the sonic boom problem that | relegated the Concorde to ocean-crossing routes? Or will this | also be relegated to ocean-crossing routes? | | What's the market for this? The Concorde was extremely expensive | to operate and extremely expensive to fly on. Are they predicting | lots of wealthy people looking for fast international travel | between North America and East Asia? | | > "The world's first purchase agreement for net-zero carbon | supersonic aircraft marks a significant step toward our mission | to create a more accessible world," Scholl said in a statement. | | > Part of what made buying supersonic jets appealing to United is | Boom's plan to power the planes with engines that will run on | sustainable aviation fuel. | | How does a net-zero carbon aircraft work? What is "sustainable" | in this context? Carbon credits? | aero-glide2 wrote: | Right now, its relegated to ocean crossing routes. They will be | using synthetic fuels. | quux wrote: | Not sure about other countries but under current US laws it | wouldn't be able to fly supersonically over land. Boom has been | trying to get the laws to be a limit on noise heard on the | ground rather than speed but that's going to take a long time | to change if ever. | | If the boom plane or similar is a success and airlines started | lobbying for change then maybe something could happen. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-03 23:00 UTC)